


The King's Telepath

by sophiemyst



Series: The Royal Telepath [2]
Category: Southern Vampire Mysteries - Charlaine Harris
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-13 03:56:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 31,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/819701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiemyst/pseuds/sophiemyst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sequel to The Queen's Telepath; as a small child, Sookie was taken in and raised by Sophie-Anne. This is the next stage, the next part of her story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to The Queen's Telepath. I'd love it if you could enjoy this one as a standalone piece, but in all honesty, there's going to be a lot of stuff you won't get if you haven't already read TQT.
> 
> If you haven't read The Queen's Telepath, seriously, please go read it before you read this. It's only 10 chapters, and it's pretty awesome. I know I'm biased, but it really doesn't suck. Promise.
> 
> For those of you who have read it, some of your questions will soon be answered... and more will come up to take their place. Mwahah.

Clad only in my knickers and a matching bra, I frowned at the contents of my closet. I had no idea what to wear. Sophie-Anne breezed in—without knocking, of course; she never knocked—carrying a garment bag.

"Here, Sookie. Wear this," she said, holding it out to me.

"Good evening to you, too," I said, letting just a little snark out in my tone. I took it, hung it up on the closet door and unzipped the bag.

Once I saw what was inside, I blinked and asked, "Where's the rest of it?"

Sophie-Anne laughed. "That's the whole of it, ma fifille."

I raised my eyebrows at her most recent nickname for me. Ever since I'd turned eighteen, she'd become enamored of the fact that I looked even the tiniest bit older than her, even though she was more than a thousand years my senior. For that reason, she got some strange kick out of referring to me as her "little girl."

Over the years, Sophie-Anne had a number of pet names she'd used for me. Sometimes the names stuck for a year or more, but just as often as not, she would forget them or find another one she liked better after a week or so. She'd been calling me her fifille for well over a month, which meant it was likely to stick around a while.

Taking another look at the outfit she'd brought me, I protested, "I'm going to get more coverage from what I've already got on."

Sophie-Anne eyed my underwear appreciatively. "We're vampires, fifille. We don't care about coverage, so as charming as your knickers are, they'll just have to go."

With a sigh of resignation, I shed my bra and panties, pulled the "dress" out of the garment bag, and carefully put it on.

It was a simple, flowing red dress with no real waistline to speak of. It was almost completely see-through, and left nothing to the goodness the palace wasn't too chilly; I didn't want to put anyone's eyes out.

From what I understood of the outside world, humans were far more modest than vampires. I knew my Gran, may she rest in peace, wouldn't have approved of my current lack of modesty; I just wasn't certain if that was a human thing or a generational thing. Having been raised around vampires, I tended to be on the less-modest side. Everyone has a body; the question isn't necessarily whether or not we have pink bits, but rather: it's what we do with them.

Since everyone knew me as the Queen's favorite pet, my body was treated as if it were a museum piece: look, but don't touch. Sometimes even looking was frowned upon. Knowing that no one could touch me—not without some seriously dire consequences—went a long way to make it fairly easy for me to let others see me mostly naked. Being able to hear the thoughts of humans, I knew that even if I was bundled up in a parka, people were going to mentally undress me. While I couldn't read vampire minds, I had trouble imagining that they were any different in that regard.

Hell, if anything, they were probably worse.

"Sit," Sophie-Anne ordered, pointing to the seat in front of my vanity. I sat and watched in the mirror while she did my hair.

Anyone watching would be shocked. Even humans — who had known about vampires since the Great Revelation, but were also aware that Sophie-Anne was specifically amongst the fanged folk — would be surprised to see a vampire waiting on her pet, not the other way around.

Publicly, we maintained the expected appearances: I was mostly invisible, always compliant, and ever eager to bare a neck or wrist for Sophie-Anne. She maintained that she was a jealous lover, and wouldn't let anyone else see me in flagrante delicto. Fact of the matter was, she and I didn't have that kind of relationship.

Privately, the only people who had more leeway than I did were Sophie-Anne's children: Andre, Wybert, and Siegbert.

Most people knew that the Queen had a telepath, but they didn't know that it was me. I'd been living with and working for Sophie-Anne for thirteen years.

When I was eight years old, my Gran and I came to live at the palace; Gran was taken on as the cook for the human donors who lived there. The official explanation for my presence wasn't a complete lie: as the sole survivor of an accident that had killed the rest of my family, I was under my Gran's care.

Of course, the real reason we were both there was because of me and my unique ability. As best as we could figure, I was the only known telepath. I had reason to suspect that there were others, but I kept that information to myself. The older I grew, the more secrets I had. It was something I was still coming to terms with, and Sophie-Anne was not only understanding, but encouraging in that regard. She felt, as I suppose most vampires did, that one's ability to keep their own secrets was a sign of emotional maturity. Or perhaps a better way of putting it would be that the longer you kept your mouth closed, the longer you lived.

According to a letter that my Gran had written before she'd died, my telepathy was an indirect gift. Many years before I was born, a demon named Mr Cataliades had told a friend of his, a fairy named Fintan, that any of his descendants who were born with the "essential spark" would be given the gift of telepathy. That same letter also explained how and why it was Fintan — and Gran's husband — who was my true biological grandfather. As far as anyone was aware, I was the first and only recipient of that gift.

I was still a little unclear on the whole fairy thing; I'd heard about them from the vampires, but the two races are very much like oil and water. Fairies are vicious and well-known for their fighting abilities, but for vampires specifically, they're somewhere between delicacy and drug. As such, I'd never met one and wasn't likely to ever do so, as surrounded as I was by vampires.

Supposedly, the smell of a fairy was to a vampire what the smell of chocolate was to me: completely irresistible. Even though I was technically one-eighth fairy, my blood had no scent or taste. Sophie-Anne had once told me that some demons had no scent or taste, and the best guess I had was that Mr Cataliades' gift somehow canceled out any odor or flavor that I might have otherwise had.

Whatever the reason, I was grateful for it. I don't want to imagine how my life would have been different if I'd smelled like vampire chocolate. It probably wouldn't have lasted very long, telepathy notwithstanding.

As it was, I spent my early years lurking behind one-way mirrors, spying on vampires and humans alike. After I'd gotten old enough, I started masquerading as Sophie-Anne's pet. At first, she took neither my blood nor my body, but just before the Great Revelation—when vampires announced their presence to the human world—Sophie-Anne and I were blood-bonded.

As a child, I looked up to Sophie-Anne; she was in her teens when she was turned, so to my young eyes she was one of the cool older kids. She was, in fact, thirteen-hundred years older, but I didn't really grasp that at the time. When I myself was a teenager, she was the only one nearby who looked like one of my peers. By the time I was an adult, she was my Queen, my boss, and my best friend—but she was not my lover.

Granted, it seemed like that was just about the only thing we didn't do. I sometimes got the impression that if I ever had the slightest inkling that I might be attracted to women, Sophie-Anne would be all over me like sugar on a beignet.

The look she was giving me as we were admiring her handiwork in the mirror was a shining example of that. It had only taken her a minute or two to put my hair into an elaborate up-do that left my neck bare, aside from a few wispy tendrils. While I'd never seen one, I'd heard that vampire nudie mags were less about genitalia and more about places on the body with especially juicy arteries or veins: neck, wrists, and inner thighs.

"Tell me again why I need to be there tonight?" I asked. It was entirely possible that I would be the only human there; since I couldn't read vampire minds, it didn't seem like my services would be required.

"Sookie, if I wanted to hear high-pitched noises from you, it wouldn't be in the form of whining. Even if you do pout adorably." Just because she could, she reached out and pinched the sides of my mouth together, making my lips look more fishy than pouty. I rolled my eyes, but grinned at her after I pulled away. "It would look odd if my favorite pet wasn't with me when I greet the latest delegation," she said, finally answering my question.

"Which state are we hearing tonight?" I asked. "Alabama?"

She snorted. "Arkansas. Not much better. Now that vampires have gone public, tourism in New Orleans has gone through the roof; everyone wants a piece of Louisiana because of it. If I'd known how much of a pain in the ass that was going to be, I would have made sure to kill Anne Rice's grandparents when they were still in their cradles."

"Please. You love the attention. You're just upset that it's not a more well-off state."

With a grin, she relented. "True. There's nothing in Arkansas. I'm surprised there's any vampires there at all."

"Maybe that's why they like it. What's the game plan tonight?"

"We show off a little; not so much that they get greedy, but enough that they realize we're way out of their league. Hopefully they'll go away on their own accord when they realize we're way out of their league. In the meantime, if there are any non-vampires there, you can listen in on their thoughts and let me know if you hear anything I need to know about this sham of a marriage proposal."

"Sounds like a plan," I said as I stood up. Without further discussion, Sophie-Anne and I left my room.

Neither of us could possibly know how the evening would turn out; I was telepathic, not psychic. There was no way to avoid what was coming, but if we'd had even the slightest inkling of what would take place, no doubt we would have taken a few more minutes to enjoy the last moments of peace and quiet that she and I would ever have together.


	2. Attack on the palace

Stumbling from the speed with which I was pushed into the room, I winced as I landed knees-first on the polished concrete floor. The adrenaline coursing through my system meant that it didn't hurt at that exact moment, but I'd be feeling it later. I jumped up and spun around just in time to hear a thunk and several loud clicks coming from the thick door of the panic room. I'd only been in here once before—during the night of the Great Revelation—but I remembered well that those clicking noises were from the door's locking mechanism.

Once the panic room was locked, regardless of what side it was locked from, that door could only be opened from the inside. There were some kind of fail-safes in place to keep us from locking ourselves out of it altogether, but I had no idea what they were, and at that precise moment, I didn't care.

The air felt stale and stuffy; most likely, I was the last person to have been in here for any length of time. It wasn't like the cleaning service came in here to air things out; not many people even knew this room existed. Since I needed to breathe, my first priority was turning on the room's isolated air intake and filtration system.

My hands were shaking from shock and adrenaline, so it took me far longer than I was comfortable with to push the necessary buttons on the room's air control panel. The chachunk-whirr sound that accompanied the first gust of fresh air was as sweet a sound as I'd ever heard.

That taken care of, I dashed over to the computer desk, dropped to my knees — wincing as I knew I was only adding to how sore they would be in a few hours — and groped under the desk until I found the power switch on the computer tower. I leaned back, letting my ankles go to the sides; the cold concrete under my rear shocked me at first, until I remembered that I was still wearing a dress which barely qualified as any sort of clothing. That thought soon left me as I stood up and stared at the computer monitors, waiting.

It was odd, the thoughts that flashed through my brain while I got myself situated. As the screens all came to life, they reminded me of the old movies that Gran and I used to watch in the palace's movie theater. Except instead of watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance their cares away, I was going to watch my friends lay the smack down on the vampires who dared to attack the Queen in her own home.

I didn't need to be told who was behind this. The delegation from Arkansas had been odd, though on the surface it appeared to have been rather cut and dried. Their king, Peter Threadgill, wanted a marriage — strictly a political union — with Sophie-Anne, but had nothing to bring to the table that would make it worthwhile for her. His people hadn't come bearing gifts, just offers of their "protection."

When Sophie-Anne had turned them down, she'd done it with more grace and politeness than the situation warranted. They had left with barely concealed anger and resentment.

And maybe, I realized in retrospect, a little smugness.

I was dealing with my own anger at the moment. The computer was set up so that when you turned it on, it automatically started all the programs it needed to make the security and monitoring software work. Though it couldn't have taken more than a minute or two, the time it took for all the monitors to come online felt more like an hour.

The panic room was small — about eight feet square. There was a set of metal shelves with various supplies all contained in clear plastic containers: MREs and sealed bottles of water, a startling amount of first aid supplies (including a portable defibrillator kit), and several different types of communication radios (and thankfully, the manuals for them).

On the lowest shelf was a tightly-rolled Army surplus sleeping bag. Leaning against the wall next to the shelves was a folded-up cot. There wasn't much else I could do to burn off nervous energy, so I set up the cot and unrolled the sleeping bag on top of it.

Now there was nothing else I could do, and it made me want to hit something. I'd learned how to fight, but I would never be allowed to participate in any actual battles.

I was a political tool, a strategic asset. The only known telepath was too rare a treasure, or so I'd been told.

I sat cross-legged on the cot, leaned back against the wall, pulled the edges of the sleeping bag around my legs, and watched events unfold on the monitors in front of me.

Canisters of some kind were thrown into various rooms; whatever fumes spewed from them, they were enough to knock the Were guards unconscious. If I strained, I could still barely catch some of their brain patterns; I wouldn't be able to feel them at all if they were dead. The vampires, who didn't need to breathe, were soon engaged in fighting.

I couldn't tell who was who; I knew what our people looked like, but everyone was moving too quickly for the cameras to pick up any identifying features.

Wybert was the first form I could recognize; he'd stopped fighting because the room appeared to have been wiped clear of enemies. He alone stood triumphant amongst piles of ash and flaking, decaying bodies.

A flash of light reflected off of the sword as it swung into the camera's view.

Wybert was dust before his head could hit the ground.

I gagged, unable to suppress the dry heaves that threatened to double me over. From the corner of my eye, I could see Sophie-Anne on one of the monitors — clutching at Andre as she felt one of her children meet his final death. In some corner of my mind, some part that remained detached and analytical, I knew that I was feeling her pain as well as my own. I had never been stabbed, but I could imagine that the sharp agony I felt then wasn't unlike having a knife in my chest.

With some difficulty, I managed to close off the bond between me and Sophie-Anne. Somehow, the pain was making it almost impossible to shut down, as if she were a dam that had burst and was overflowing into me.

Finally, it stopped. Panting with exertion, I realized that I had fallen off the cot and was curled in a fetal position on the cold floor. Every muscle was tensed. Even my jaw was clenched and my eyes squeezed shut. Taking gradually deeper breaths, I focused on relaxing as much as I could.

Easier said than done, all things considered.

Slowly — as if moving too quickly might accidentally jar the bond back open, bringing back the deluge of agony — I crawled back up onto the cot and lay on my side, staring at the monitors. Every now and then, I had to concentrate on focusing my vision, which kept trying to glaze over.

The fighting had reached some sort of temporary cease-fire. Negotiations of some kind were taking place with Sophie-Anne and a man that I recognized as having been part of the delegation from Arkansas.

The room that Sophie-Anne and Andre were in was one of the stronger of the safe rooms — rooms in the palace that had exit doors. It wasn't as secure as the panic room; why hadn't she stayed in here with me?

With another look around the room, I realized — human food and supplies; one cot; one sleeping bag; no bottled or bagged blood — that this room had only ever been intended for me. Sophie-Anne would never hide in such a box as this. The room she was in now was only a delaying tactic. She was waiting for reinforcements.

She would rather face her final death than close herself in a panic room.

I sat up and swiped my face clean of any tears that might have fallen.

I had blocked all memories of the accident that took the lives of my parents and my older brother. I had been too wild with grief to remember Gran's passing. As I watched what was taking place on the monitors, I fought to memorize every single image that flashed before my eyes.

I refused to lose the memory of another loved one's death.

As I saw the Arkansas vampires finally break down the door between them and my Queen, I flinched and prayed that my resolve wouldn't falter when she met her final death.

Only they didn't kill her.

It took some doing — and the deaths of a half-dozen Arkansas vampires at Andre's bare hands — before they managed to restrain Sophie-Anne and Andre with what looked like thin silver chains.

A sickening number of minutes passed, adding themselves together into long, slow hours as I watched the infiltrators torture my vampires. Still, I would not look away.

Whatever information they were attempting to extract from the queen, they weren't having any luck. Even when they staked Andre, Sophie-Anne refused to cooperate. She was almost unrecognizable to me now: her clothing long since gone, her hair cut or burned in places, her skin in tatters. What little of her I could see was left wavy and distorted by tears that kept swimming in my vision.

The other monitors, which had been mostly still, suddenly flashed with flurries of movement. In half-second increments, I dared to look away from my poor Queen to see what was going on elsewhere in the palace.

Whatever it was, it seemed to be causing a panic among the vampires that were interrogating Sophie-Anne. Without warning, they plunged a stake into her chest.

Dread and horror turned to panic when I felt the connection between us snap and break. As the pain burned through my veins, I dimly recalled hearing that blood-bonded humans rarely survived if their vampires died.

As the world around me started to fade to black, I wondered if I would ever wake again, or if I even wanted to.

I fought against oblivion with everything I had.

I lost.

\---

With the return of consciousness came the unrelenting torrent of memories of what had taken place.

Sophie-Anne, Andre and Wybert were dead. Whether Siegbert lived or died, I had no idea: I'd seen evidence of neither on the panic room's monitors.

The palace had been overrun with vampires from Arkansas. How had they gotten in? What happened?

Seconds before they brought the final death to Sophie-Anne, something had happened; some other player had arrived on the scene.

What was out there, waiting for me? Would I be able to escape?

I checked the clock. It was daylight, but sunset was fast approaching. If I wanted to try to escape, I would have to do so sooner, rather than later.

But where the hell could I go? I'd barely ever been outside the palace walls. The only refuge I could think of was Gran's old farmhouse, and while that would have worked for a short while, it wasn't a long-term solution. I could be too easily found there. Besides, I had no clue how to even get there.

Whichever group of vampires was now in charge of the palace, it was foolish to assume they didn't have Weres — or who knew what else — watching their backs during the daylight hours. There would be no escape for me. At least, not by sneaking out.

I sat up, every muscle in my body protesting the movement. Everything hurt, reminding me of muscles I'd forgotten I had. My body hadn't been this sore since Gladiola had first started teaching me self-defense.

... And what was that smell?

I shifted the folds of the sleeping bag, checking to see if its previous mustiness had ripened into something more. Nope. Carefully, I stood up and walked over to the control panel for the air filtration system. All of the indicators looked right. I tapped at it, because, I don't know, maybe the repeated application of my fingernail would magically make it work? Maybe not so much. Looking around, I finally spotted a vent; there was no odor coming from that, either.

Frustrated, I sat on the chair in front of the desk and took a close look at the monitors. A few of the cameras had gotten damaged or disconnected in the attack, so some of the screens were blank. I could see well enough from the remaining cameras that there were, indeed, guards posted throughout the palace, but there was no way to tell who they were working for. I didn't recognize anyone, but that didn't necessarily mean anything; our humans and Weres had all been injured; even if we'd won, we'd be using temporary replacements until they all recovered.

There wasn't a guard posted anywhere near the panic room — that would give away its location. Hopefully the new vampires in charge wouldn't be aware of it, and that would buy me some time.

The desk chair was of the wheeled variety, so I scooted easily over to the supplies shelf. I grabbed the box of MREs and rifled through them. They looked pretty old; I recalled reading somewhere that they never went bad, but I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to risk it. Putting the box back on the shelf, I reached instead for a box of protein bars that I'd only just noticed.

They tasted horrid, but they did what I needed them to do, which was fill my empty stomach. I fought to keep them down; I was more than a little nauseated, but I knew I needed to keep my strength up.

I took another look at the clock and sighed. It was almost sunset.

Come sunset, the vampires would rise, and I would see who and what I was dealing with.

I lifted my arm to run a hand through my hair — whoa!

The smell... Was coming from me.

I blinked. No. That couldn't be right. I didn't have a scent. Gran used to tease me that I'd save a mint on deodorant, because I never needed the stuff. I cautiously lifted my arm again — as if my arm might bite me, maybe? I recognized I wasn't entirely rational at this point — leaned my head in, and took a whiff.

It wasn't strong to my underdeveloped nose, but no doubt a vampire would be able to smell me a mile away. It wasn't unpleasant, but I couldn't think of anything to compare it with.

Maybe, on top of everything else, I was getting sick. I'd never been sick, and I'd never smelled. Sophie-Anne's voice rang in my head: "Correlation does not equal causation, Sookie. Keep your mind open to as many possibilities as you can manage."

Some part of me was in survival mode: wait and see what was going on before freaking out. Another part was fixating on distractions. What did it matter if I was unwell? Vampire blood cured damn near everything.

No matter who was in charge now, I had no delusions that I would actually manage to escape them, especially since I now had a scent that they could use to track me. Once they figured out I was the telepath — if they didn't already know — there was no way they would allow me to succumb to illness, even if they had to force feed me their blood. My stomach rolled at the idea.

Mr. Cataliades hadn't been in the palace at the time of the attack, so he was likely unharmed, but I had no way of knowing whether or not he could do anything to protect me at this point.

While I waited, I desperately tried to keep my emotions in check. As much as I wanted to fall apart, to hide in the arms of my Gran or my Queen, that would never again be possible. I was alone now.

Staring at the screens wasn't making the seconds tick by any faster, and it wasn't helping to distract me. I needed a distraction. Maybe I could find a deck of cards in here. Gran had taught me almost a dozen different games of Solitaire. With some cards, I could keep myself distracted for hours.

Digging through the supplies had helped to pass a good half an hour, and had also scored me a washcloth and a set of blue hospital scrubs. I emptied one of the plastic containers to use it as a bowl and poured some of the bottled water into it so I could take a sponge bath. It seemed to help cut the smell a bit, or maybe it just spread it around. I couldn't tell. Either way, I did feel cleaner — physically, at least. There was an inner ache that I'd never be able to scrub away. Once I'd patted myself dry with a second washcloth, I changed into the scrubs; they weren't a perfect fit, but I was glad to be covered.

I wouldn't be able to hide behind Sophie-Anne anymore, and that made me feel like I couldn't put enough layers of clothing on. I was more vulnerable than I'd ever been, at least so far as I could recall.

There was only a half hour or so until sunset, and there was no guarantee that the vampires now in charge of the palace would be up and visible on the remaining cameras anytime soon. I kept checking the monitors, but there was no activity on them. Yet.

Once I'd put everything back on the shelves, I'd lain back on the cot and tried to think of other ways to make the time pass faster.

I wasn't sure if no time had passed at all, or if somehow I'd managed to fall into a dreamless sleep, but I jolted upright at the sound of someone banging on the wall.

There was someone outside the panic room door.

And they were trying to get in.


	3. Changing of the guard

Whoever was banging at the door, they stopped for a moment. I held my breath, hoping that they were only testing for potential hidden rooms, that maybe they didn't actually know for a fact that someone was in here.

I could see a single person — a vampire, from the brain pattern I was picking up — just outside the panic room door, but I couldn't get a look at their face.

If I got out of this unscathed, I was going to have a serious talk with the person who had set up these blasted cameras. If they were alive, anyway.

Whoever was outside the door, they shouldn't be able to get in; Sophie-Anne had told me that the door could only be opened from the inside. But there was a panel that apparently had...

"Is anyone in there?"

... an intercom system. I wished I'd known that earlier. Not that I would have used it, but that was potentially useful information.

I walked over to the door and pressed the button to reply before it occurred to me that  _maybe_  that wasn't such a good idea. I released the button without speaking.

Unfortunately: "I heard that. Open the door."

Well,  _shit_.

There was no way out of this. I'd have to open up sooner or later, and the more  _later_  it was, the more pissed off they'd be at me. I unlocked the door and darted backwards into the room so that there would be a few feet between me and whoever was on the other side.

Not like a vampire couldn't cross ten times that distance in the blink of an eye.

I knew it would be more nuisance than actual impediment if they wanted to get me, but I grabbed a wooden training sword (why was that even  _in_ here?) and stood at the ready, just like Gladiola had taught me. I wished it were a real sword, even though I hadn't ever held one before. Still, it was better than nothing.

Slowly, the door opened.

It was  _Eric fucking Northman_. Even though he was scowling at me, I'd never been so glad to see him in all my life.

"Sookie? If  _you're_  in here, that means the telepath..."

"Is alive and well," I said, interrupting him.

"Where is he?"

_He?_  Oh, right. The last time the sheriff and I had talked — he'd been driving me back to Bon Temps from New Orleans after my Gran's funeral — he'd indicated that he thought the Queen's telepath was male.

Before I could respond, Eric got a strange look on his face. He very visibly sniffed at the air.

I blushed. I'd never realized just how embarrassing it could be to be  _sniffed_  like that. Talk about awkward. It didn't help that he had gone perfectly still, standing in the doorway with one hand gripping the handle. Surely I didn't smell  _that_  bad.

"Whose scent is that? Who else has been in this room with you? Where is the telepath?"

I gulped. "No one. I've been here by myself."

"That's not possible."

Relieved as I was to see him, I had no idea what was going on other than the fact that my Queen and her children were all ashes. I had no fucking patience.

With all the command and poise I could muster, I straightened up and tossed the wooden sword onto the cot. "Come in and close the door behind you."

He didn't seem the type to do what he was told, but oddly enough, he obeyed. He wasn't happy about it, though, his jaw was clenched and his fists were knotted. He could be as mad as he wanted; I had nothing left to lose.

We stood there for a moment, leaning against opposite walls of the panic room. I took a deep breath and tried to keep the tears out of my eyes, the emotion out of my voice. "Are you alone out there? Or have you taken the kingdom back from Arkansas?"

He raised an eyebrow. "The kingdom is mine now. I arrived too late to save Sophie-Anne—"

"I think they killed her when you got here," I said, interrupting him. "I saw it on the monitors. I don't think they planned on killing her so soon; it was probably a reaction to your arrival."

"That is what we have been able to determine, yes. As I am now in charge, I need you to tell me where the telepath is, so that I can make sure he is safe and secure."

I snorted. "You're looking at  _her_."

He blinked and looked around. "But it is only you in here, and I can smell someone; you have no scent, so someone else—"

"Eric,  _I'm_  the telepath." I decided to not address the fact that I was in desperate need of a shower. And for Dr. Ludwig to find out what was wrong with me.

"I… What? No. That can't be right."

I closed my eyes and rubbed them as I let out a frustrated sigh. "At your request, I listened in on you when you were interviewing potential employees for Fangtasia. You smiled and waved into the camera when no one else was around, and once told me that the voice distortion of the microphone made me sound like Darth Vader."

Twice now I'd gotten to see him gape like a fish out of water, counting that time he'd driven me back from Bon Temps. He was completely and utterly gobsmacked. "But... you..."

I raised my eyebrows and let him stammer for a few seconds before I cut him off. "I know. But I  _am_  the telepath, I swear on my Gran's grave. Look, can we deal with this later? There's something wrong with me. I need Dr. Ludwig."

Having something else to focus on seemed to help him collect his wits. He frowned and looked up and down my body, like he was checking for any possible injuries. Though the door was closed behind him, he was still holding onto the handle, behind his back, as if his life depended on it. Or maybe mine.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked. "Have you been injured?"

"I'm not supposed to…" I blushed, not knowing how to phrase it, or why I was having such difficulty talking about it. "Uh. I don't usually have a scent. And now I do."

Shit. I'd broken him again. His eyes widened further, which I hadn't thought possible. "That scent is coming from  _you_?"

I rubbed my hands over my face, wrinkling my nose as I caught a whiff of the sweat on my palms; it wasn't a  _bad_  smell, I just wasn't used to it coming from  _me_. It was similar to how I didn't mind pimples on anyone else, but if I got one? Total end-of-the-world stuff. "Yeah, sorry about that. I don't know what's causing it."

"No need to apologize." His voice was low, almost humming. Startled, I looked back up at him and saw that his pupils were dilated enough to make his irises almost non-existent. There was a much different look on his face; I'd seen that expression plenty of times — just never from him, and never directed at me.

" _Eric_ ," I said sharply, trying to snap him out of whatever was going on with him. He blinked and looked at me with slightly clearer eyes. "There's something wrong with me. Get Dr. Ludwig. I don't think I should leave this room until she checks me out."

He shook his head, as if that would magically clear it — like an Etch-a-Sketch, maybe. Oddly enough, it seemed to work; I wished  _I_  could do that. He nodded and intoned in an official sounding voice that I was "not to leave this room until further notice." I fought against the desire to roll my eyes as he closed the door on his way out.

That wasn't the only reaction I was fighting. A tight knot of anger, anxiety, and grief twisted in my belly. I closed my eyes and tried to keep myself together. I just needed to get through this minute, and then I would deal with the minute after that. I would just keep doing that until an hour had passed, and then another. Eventually I would get back to being okay.

There were going to be a lot of minutes and hours between  _right now_  and  _okay_. I didn't even know what _okay_  looked like anymore.

I lay back on the cot and actively listened to the hum of minds in the palace. I was pleased to discover that none of the donors had been killed, and most of the Weres had only been incapacitated.

That was bizarre, to say the least. Vampires generally viewed humans and Weres as beneath them, and as such, didn't care whether they lived or died.

With a shiver that gave way to a bone-deep chill, I realized why they had spared the lives of so many: the attackers had no idea who the telepath was. As I lay there, unable to stop shaking, I realized that keeping my secret had inadvertently saved dozens of lives.

I bolted upright and spent the next ten minutes emptying my stomach into a small trash bin. Not like that protein bar had done me much good, anyway.

I don't know how much time passed before Dr. Ludwig showed up, but it didn't seem like that long. Her eyes went wide when I let her into the panic room, but she didn't comment. Whatever type of non-human she was, I was guessing she had a fairly sensitive nose. That, or I was really stinking up the place.

My vitals were all a bit elevated, but she attributed that to stress and shock. She drew a small amount of blood and tested it by putting drops of it into different test tubes with different colored liquids. I watched all of this just as silently as she carried it out.

I didn't get nervous until she pulled out a cell phone and called someone. Whoever she'd called, she was speaking with them in a language that I'd never heard before. It didn't even sound like a human language — there were strange trills, growls and clicks mingling with the foreign syllables.

After closing her phone with a decisive  _snap_ , she reached into her big black bag and pulled out a syringe. Setting it to the side, she continued to dig in her bag until she rather triumphantly pulled out a small glass vial.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Just a little concoction of mine; it's an antibiotic combined with a mild sedative. It'll knock you out, but when you wake up, you'll be all better."

"Okay, that's great, but what's  _wrong_  with me?"

"Nothing that this juice and a little sleep won't cure," she said, reaching for my hand. "C'mon girl, give me your arm already. You think you're my only patient?"

As I felt the needle sting my arm, it carried the barest echo of what Sophie-Anne's teeth had felt like whenever they pierced my skin. Immediately, I felt the sedative begin to take effect, and I dived into unconsciousness, eager for the respite of a dreamless sleep.

\---

When I woke up, I was back in my own room. Someone — I wasn't sure if I wanted to know who — had cleaned me up, put me into a nightgown, and tucked me into bed. I pulled the neckline of the gown away from my chest, first to look (I was wearing underwear, yay), and then to smell (I didn't, yay again).

Aside from the fact that everyone I loved was dead, all was once again right in my world.

You know, aside from that one minor little detail.

Alone in my room, I could finally let go a little. So I did. Except I let go a  _lot_. Never before had I cried so hard or for so long. Not that I could recall.

I stayed holed up in my room long enough for me to lose track of how long I'd been there. Whatever bug, infection, or virus I'd gotten that made me smell funny, I didn't know if it was contagious. While I figured it wouldn't affect the vampires, it might still be dangerous for the Weres and humans that lived and worked in the palace. I didn't get sick often enough to have learned about that kind of thing; hell, I couldn't even recall  _ever_  having been sick. I knew it had to have happened — at least, before I'd bonded with Sophie-Anne.

Sophie-Anne. My Queen. My best friend. For as long as I could remember, she had been my one true constant. On some level I'd always known Gran wouldn't always be around, that old age would eventually take her from me. But not Sophie-Anne. She was supposed to outlive me.

Before the Great Revelation, she and I had talked about death, and how she felt about it. She wouldn't have wanted me to mourn her nearly half as long as I'd done. Her death had already been avenged; the people who had killed her were themselves ashes.  _Life was for the living_ , as Gran would say.

My strange illness was as good an excuse as any to make people leave me alone while I grieved. I had no idea how to handle what I'd seen, how to cope with what had happened. I thought that I should be falling apart at the seams or having some sort of blackout episode, but I felt oddly numb. Make no mistake: I wept until dehydration became a valid concern. But even as my bed shook with sobs, there was a part of me that felt detached, as if it was a silent observer to the whole process. That part of me shed no tears; it merely waited, but for what, I don't exactly know.

I knew that there were guards posted outside of my door, but their minds were oddly quiet, as if they'd been glamoured. That was fine by me. I wasn't sure who, but someone brought food into my room whenever I was sleeping. I suspected it might have been Eric, even though that seemed a bit beneath him, being the new King and all.

On the third or maybe fourth day — time really didn't hold much meaning for me — I woke up because I could feel someone watching me. Without opening my eyes or turning to face away from the wall, I spoke.

"Can I help you?"

"How did you know I was here?" It was Eric. "I hadn't made a single sound since I heard you wake."

After a yawn, I responded, my voice still hoarse from having cried myself to sleep. "Vampire minds feel like a big blank spot. Ever been in a completely silent room, and it's so quiet it makes your ears buzz? That's what you guys do to my brain."

"What about the guard outside your door?"

I briefly opened my eyes for the sole purpose of rolling them and let out a sigh: I knew he was testing me. "Guards. Plural. There's two of them: Armando and Julian. They're both Weres, which makes them harder to read, but they've also been glamoured — which is impressive, by the way; they're harder to glamour than humans — which makes their minds quieter."

"You really are the telepath," he said softly, no small amount of awe — or maybe trepidation — in his voice.

As tempted as I was to give a snarky response, I just didn't have the energy. "Yep."

"All this time, and I had no idea."

"I know. You thought I was male."

He chuckled. " _You_  were obviously not male. I thought  _the telepath_  was male."

I didn't have the energy to respond to that, either. I sighed and curled into a tighter ball under the covers.

"Dr. Ludwig has cleared you for work. I have need of your services."

"I'll need to—"

"Mr. Cataliades is ready to go over your contract whenever you are."

I twisted my head and body just enough to look at him, frowning as I did so. I opened my mouth to say something rude to him, but he cut me off before I could get a single word out.

"I won't stop you from grieving, but from here on out you'll do it on your own time. I have a kingdom to get back in order, and the first line of business is to clear out any moles. I'll need your help with that. Surely you can understand that this is necessary for your own safety."

Damn it. He was right; in that moment, I hated him for that. All I wanted to do was stay in bed and be left alone. Even though I didn't technically work for Northman yet, he wasn't going to let me waltz on out of the palace now that he knew who and what I really was. No vampire who knew what I was would ever let me get away. There was a time when I found that thought comforting; I had no idea what to make of it anymore.

So now I would have to become the King's telepath.

I sat up in bed and looked over at Northman. His expression was stern at first, but softened slightly after a moment.

"I understand that you and Sophie-Anne were blood-bonded."

I nodded, then looked back down at my comforter. The bright yellow daffodil print that had once seemed so cheery almost seemed to mock me, like it was wrong to look at something that had pleased me before.

"There is a ritual we can do to break—"

"I know," I said, interrupting him. "It won't help."

He frowned. "You don't know what I was going to say."

"It doesn't matter," I responded, shrugging. "Have you ever been blood-bonded, Northman?"

"Eric. And no, I haven't."

"Northman," I insisted; it felt like less of a betrayal to Sophie-Anne if I kept things formal with my new King. "I know more about blood bonds than the average vampire. You think that I'm upset and in pain because of a dead bond. Maybe..." I paused to clear my throat, to stop my voice from cracking. "Maybe it's just because I loved her. She was all I had."

He was silent for a while; I stared down at my comforter and pulled off the little bits of fabric that had pilled on the surface.

There was a sharp rap on the door, and Northman called for whoever it was to enter. A female vampire walked in, closed the door behind her, and gave Northman a smirk. He stayed seated, but I saw him give her a quick wink; it reminded me of how Gran would wink affectionately at me at the dinner table. Seeing the connection between them was a sharp, stinging reminder that I was more alone than ever.

"Sookie, this is Pamela Ravenscroft, my child and my second. Pam, this is Sookie Stackhouse."

"Delighted," she said, sounding anything but. "You're his new pet, then?"

I remembered having watched her on the monitors when I was helping with the Fangtasia interviews. She could rile up her maker like no one else; I suspected that she and I would get along famously.

"Fuck off, Pam. You know I'm the telepath; you suck at lying."

Pam grinned at Northman, who looked surprised — although I couldn't tell if it was from my response or her reaction. "She's feisty. Tell me we're keeping her."

He rolled his eyes and stood up. "Pam, make sure she gets dressed and goes downstairs to meet with Mr. Cataliades."

She ran her eyes over my body and quirked an eyebrow. "Sure, anything you say."

Northman walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. I threw the covers off and swung my legs over the side of the bed so I could get up.

"Whatever you've heard about me," I said, "take it with a small Siberian salt mine. It's probably not true."

"Well, let's go over what I've heard, shall we? Sophie-Anne rescued you from an orphanage at the tender age of eight and trained you for most of your life with the intention of making you her pet. She was your first and only lover. Even though your blood has no scent or flavor, she kept you around because, rumor had it, you're  _vampire-good_  in the sack. Now, as far as the telepath rumors go..."

"Don't bother," I interrupted. "We'll be here all night."

"I don't mind if you don't."

With a sigh, I stood up and stiffly walked over to my closet. "I  _do_  need to talk to Mr. C."

"How right was I?"

"Huh? Oh. Um. Everything was just a little off. Half-truths," I said as I looked through my clothes. "I came to live at the palace when I was eight. The rest of my family is dead, but I was never in an orphanage; my Gran took care of me until she died. We were brought here because of my telepathy. It's true that my blood doesn't normally smell or taste like anything, and no: I don't know why that is. What Sophie-Anne and I did or didn't do isn't anyone else's business."

By the time I was done rambling, I'd selected jeans, a black long-sleeved t-shirt, and gotten out a clean set of underwear. I walked over to my dresser and pulled out my pill box. The most recent tray of food had come with three bottles of water; I took one, cracked it open, and used it to take my daily vitamins.

Pam watched me like a hawk. "Pills?"

"Vitamins."

"Why? And what kind?"

"Why does anyone take vitamins? Because they're good for me. B12, C, D, and a multivitamin."

She narrowed her eyes slightly and responded only by humming. She did perk up a bit, though, when she realized I was heading towards my bathroom; even though I didn't smell anymore, I knew I needed a shower. I felt stale and itchy, like I was wearing a suit made of ants.

"Need any help, Sookie?" she asked in an overly sweet voice.

"Pam, are you trying to get into my pants?"

"You're not wearing any pants."

I looked down at my nightshirt, then back up at her."You know what I mean."

"Yes. I want to find out if you're really as good as they say. I know Eric's curious too, but we've heard you don't bat for his team."

It was really difficult to not laugh. I gave up and laughed. "Right. I'll be out in a minute. You can wait here or go away."

"Mmm. Can I wait in there?"

"No."

She let out a melodramatic sigh, but it didn't match the grin on her face. "I suppose I'll have to take what I can get. Besides, you might change your mind. I'll wait here."

I managed to keep the grin off my face until the bathroom door closed behind me, but it was gone by the time I turned on the water for my shower. The sadness that came back like a creeping tide brought with it a pang of guilt. I had lost everyone I'd ever loved; I shouldn't be bantering with flirty vampires.

My mind wandered as I mechanically went through my shower routine. How long was I supposed to mourn? How long should the grieving process be? When would it stop hurting to think about Sophie-Anne? The loss of Gran wasn't any help, because it was such a different situation, and I'd never expected Gran to live forever.

Feeling slightly better once I was cleaned and dressed in fresh clothes, I opened the bathroom door and went to sit by my vanity. Pam was still in my room, very openly snooping through my stuff. Maybe she thought it would upset me; maybe it should have, but I found I didn't have the energy to care. The only secrets I had were the ones I kept locked up inside myself.

After brushing through my wet hair, I split it into sections and put it into a single, long braid that trailed down my back, almost to my waist.

"She didn't let you cut it, did she?" Pam asked, her tone more subdued than I'd ever heard it.

"What? No. She never told me I couldn't. I just... didn't." I felt another twinge as I remembered why I'd never cut it; I once mentioned the idea to Sophie-Anne, and she'd looked sad. She'd gotten some strange comfort from my hair. I never understood, and even though I'd respected her privacy by not asking, I wished now that I'd known why.

I stood up, raised my eyebrows at Pam, who nodded. I let her lead me out of my room and downstairs so that I could meet with my demon lawyer.


	4. Put 'em up

It was safe to say that I knew the layout of the palace better than Pam, but I let her lead me to a small conference room that Mr. Cataliades and I had used in the past. It was one of the few secure rooms — there were no one-way mirrors or security cameras.

It was also one of the nicer rooms; instead of a conference table, there were two small couches on either side of a coffee table. Mr. C. was already seated on one, but he stood to greet me as I walked in.

"Hello, Sookie. I'm always glad to see you, but today especially; I'm glad you're still with us."

I returned his hug, but didn't say anything; I wasn't entirely certain what to say. We both sat down; him on one sofa, me on the other.

He then reached into his briefcase and pulled out a strange device. It was made of some kind of silvery substance that didn't look quite like metal, and it was just a smidgen darker than normal silver; its base was shaped like a low pyramid with three sides, and on top of that was a perfectly round sphere. He looked over at me and put his finger to his lips, indicating I should shush. I nodded and watched as he slowly pushed the ball down onto the pyramid. A strange hum filled the room, then faded.

"There. That's  _much_  better. Now, my dear, we can speak openly — completely freely. The Ancient Pythoness herself could not overhear our conversation."

Wow. I'd never met the old oracle, but I'd heard of her abilities to hear and see almost anything — whether she was there or not. The impact of what he'd said hit me: if he didn't want anyone to be able to overhear our conversation, we would be discussing much more than my new contract with the new king. We'd never needed such strong precautions before. My mouth went dry as I realized I might be getting answers to some long-held questions. I wasn't sure how I felt about that; my world had already gone through enough upheaval for one week.

"Sookie, there are conversations we need to have, things we need to discuss. We won't have time to talk about all of them today, but there are some things you must know now."

"Fintan," I said, my heart starting to thud in my chest.

"Amongst other things, yes." He smiled, pleased that I'd guessed correctly. "First, I need to give you these." He reached into his bag and pulled out a familiar bottle.

"My vitamins?" I asked as I took the bottle from him. Now I was  _really_  confused.

"Ah, yes; I believe that's what Adele called them. After your grandmother passed, I had help sneaking them into your room, but the person I employed in this manner is no longer with us. Until I am able to make other arrangements, just let me know when you require more. Don't let yourself get too low. Sometimes it takes a few days to acquire more."

"Wait. Hold up. What  _are_  these?" Apparently they weren't the sort of multivitamin you could get at your local drugstore.

"This is related to one of the other subjects we must discuss. Fintan — your biological grandfather — was a half-fairy. That makes you one-eighth fairy."

"Gran mentioned that in a letter she left me."

"Did she also mention the source of your telepathy?"

"Yes, kind of. She said it was a gift from you to Fintan... something about a spark?"

He nodded. "You carry the essential spark within you; it triggered my gift to Fintan's descendants, but it carries with it its own... enhancements. One of which being a scent that most supernatural beings — vampires especially — find particularly alluring. Adele and I didn't want you falling prey to vampires because of that scent. These 'vitamins' are a special mixture of enchanted herbs that help mask your scent and taste."

In an astounding display of quick wit and eloquence, I blinked and said, "Um. Okay...?"

Mr. Cataliades gave me an apologetic smile. "I know, it's a lot to take in."

"Are you and I the only people who know about this?" I was asking for security reasons, but also because I didn't know if there was anyone else I could talk to. What if something happened to Mr. C, and I ran out?

"Gladiola and Diantha are aware of the situation. Should something happen to me, they can help you get more. And Dr. Ludwig knows, now."

It was like a light bulb went off. "So I wasn't sick a few days ago, I was just..." my voice trailed off when I realized I wasn't sure how to phrase it.

"Your natural scent was allowed to come through when the magic of the enchanted herbs wore off. That is the first thing to return; other attributes may take longer — perhaps a few days or even weeks. There are ways to make it a more permanent or longer-lasting effect, but the side effects wouldn't be pleasant."

I wrinkled my nose. So I had to take these things every day or I would smell funny. Why did that bother me? I'd been taking them all my life, but now that I knew I  _needed_  them, they were suddenly a burden.

Perhaps it was just the weight of one more secret I had to keep.

"Sookie," he said, his tone very serious, "you must promise me that you won't stop taking them."

"Of course I won't. I'll smell funny if I don't take them. I just didn't realize I needed them."

He let out a small snort. "That's something of an understatement. If you don't take them, your life will very quickly become very complicated. Or very short. I'd rather you not have to experience either of those situations."

The look on his face told me he was in ernest. I had no reason to doubt or disbelieve him, so I stuffed the container into my pocket and said, "I promise, I will keep taking them."

With a relieved smile, he reached into his briefcase and pulled out his laptop. "Excellent. Let's move on to other matters, shall we?"

\---

Several hours later, I emerged from the room feeling exhausted, but pleased. Mr. C and I had worked out the details of my new contract with the King. It wasn't too much different from what I'd had with Sophie-Anne. The primary difference was that I was under no obligations to enter into any blood bonds.

Before all of that had been worked out, Mr. C had told me a little bit more about my fae side. He said he couldn't go into too much detail — that it would be best if I could honestly plead ignorance in some matters. I didn't think I would agree to that forever, and I told him so, but it would hold for now. There was too much change swirling around me; I needed to get onto more solid footing before I took on any more.

For the remainder of our time in the conference room, we'd pored over a draft of my new contract. As he usually did, Mr. C had drawn lines through some bits and listed their corrections in the wide margins. Once he and I were done, Northman would look it over; if he had no changes, it would get typed up, given one final read, and then be signed by all the necessary parties — in triplicate, so that everyone would have a copy.

When we emerged, we found Pam waiting for us; I guessed she'd been standing guard. She looked expectantly at Mr. Cataliades, who smiled and handed her the manila envelope containing my contract. Giving him a fangy grin, she beckoned to the both of us and led us into one of Sophie-Anne's old offices. She knocked on the door, then opened it without waiting to be told to come in. Nice. She and I were definitely going to get along.

"Pamela, will you..." Northman looked up and his expression instantly changed from irritated to pleased. "Ah, I see you've brought me some company. Please, sit." He gestured at the chairs in front of his desk. Mr. C and I sat down and waited; Pam handed the envelope to Northman, and he immediately opened it and started to flick through the pages. Every now and then, he would stop on a page, narrow his eyes, and then flick them up at the lawyer or at me before going back to reading.

While it had taken me and Mr. C well over an hour to go over the contract, the King was done reading it in under five minutes.

"Interesting," Northman said as he put the papers down on his desk. He sat back and folded his hands over his stomach. "It is acceptable as a temporary contract."

"But not as a long-term contract?" I asked, a bit sharply. I thought that as long as Northman and I didn't wind up hating each other, it was a perfectly tolerable agreement.

"I didn't say that," he responded patiently. "We may want to make adjustments as time goes on. This is a good start."

Mr. C put a hand on my arm and gave me a barely noticeable shake of his head. He was right: it was a good idea for me to keep quiet; I was overwhelmed and riled up, likely to say something I might later regret. I nodded back at him and let him proceed with the negotiations.

What Northman didn't know was that my lawyer wasn't  _just_  my lawyer. It was like Mr. C was my demon godfather or something, but with less horse heads and deals I couldn't refuse. He knew what was in my own best interests in this situation — probably better than I did, in some respects.

For about an hour, the two of them bantered, bickered and nitpicked at various details of my contract. Eventually concessions were made and compromises agreed upon. They also decided that this would be a temporary contract, and that after six months we would all come back to the table to either renew it for a longer period of time, or renegotiate various points as necessary.

I heaved no small sigh of relief when the office door closed behind me. Mr. C gave me a hug before he left, and Pam started to escort me back to my room.

"Am I allowed to roam freely?" I asked.

"Yes, within certain limits," Pam responded.

Ugh. If there were limits, then it wasn't  _free_ , was it? "What are the restrictions?"

"Eric doesn't want you unguarded. You can go anywhere you like, so long as one of us is with you."

I knew that wasn't her decision, and I knew that there wasn't much I could do about it, so I let it go.

"Well, then... I need to blow off some steam. I'd like to go down to the gym for a bit, if that's not a problem."

She stopped walking and held her hand out, palm down. "Here, twist my arm."

I stared at it, confused — most vampires don't like to be casually touched, and I had no idea where she was going with this — before reaching out to grab hold of her hand. I had just barely gotten hold of her and started to gently twist when, in a deadpan voice, she said, "Ow. Stop. It hurts. Okay, okay, I'll watch you jump around, sweaty and half-naked."

With a good, healthy roll of the eyes, I dropped her hand and resumed walking.

Once we were back in my room, I went to my closet and got out my workout clothes, then brought them into the bathroom to change.

"What languages do you speak, Sookie?" Pam called out from my bedroom.

"English," I said, stepping into my spandex shorts.

"Thanks for the newsflash on that one. What else?"

"Nothing else. That's it." I finished pulling on my sports bra and opened the bathroom door.

Pam looked confused, horrified, and ecstatic all at once; I have no idea how exactly she managed that, but it was impressive.

"Sophie-Anne never had you learn any other languages?" she asked, an eyebrow raised in disbelief.

"Nope. She said she needed to be able to keep some secrets around me."

Pam's eyes narrowed. "You can't read vampire minds, can you?"

I shook my head. "No."

"Hmph. This will never do. Eric will want you to learn something. If you put up enough of a fuss, he might not make you learn Old Norse."

"Old Norse?" I blinked.

"Well, not Old Norse exactly, but whatever crusty old language he was born speaking."

I grabbed a towel and we left my room to make our way to the gym. "So wait... he really  _was_  a Viking?"

Pam groaned. "Don't  _ever_  ask him that. He'll rant for days about the misuse of the term, but all the while he'll make lewd jokes about longboats and his mighty sword."

"Nice," I said, ignoring the way Pam was eyeballing my outfit as we walked. "You don't spar at all, do you?"

"Not hardly. If you want to roll around with me, there are other ways to go about it."

She really was relentless, but in an odd way she wasn't being truly pushy. Anyone else, I might have gotten annoyed, but it was hard to get too upset with Pam's rather dry come-on attempts.

When we got to the exercise room, she hopped up onto the stack of blue mats and sat there. I went through my usual stretching routine and tried to not think about how Sophie-Anne had still been alive the last time I'd done this.

After my stretches, I went to work on the large punching bag. I kicked and punched until my arms and legs burned, and sweat was running down into my eyes. Gradually I slowed things down a bit, breaking away from the bag to do some cool-down stretches.

"Not bad, for a human." I jumped at the sound of his voice. Northman.

"Just a little physical therapy," I responded. When I looked up from my stretch, I noticed that Pam was gone.

"Pam had some errands to run for me," he said, having noticed my looking for her. "What styles are you trained in?"

"No styles."

"Who was teaching you? You've obviously had some training, based on the way you were hitting that thing."

"Gladiola said all styles have their pros and cons, but if I needed to use any of them, it wouldn't be to win competitions or belts. So she taught me how to fight dirty."

I wasn't looking at him, but I could still hear the smile in his voice when he said, "Excellent. Care to spar a bit?"

The answer to that was a big solid  _no_. I found I just didn't want to be in the same room with him; the idea of getting up close and personal just struck me as wrong. But maybe if I could get a few hits in, that might make me feel better.

"Sure. You gonna fight in that?" I asked, looking at his suit.

"Are you trying to get me naked, Miss Stackhouse?" With a grin, he took off his jacket and placed it on top of the mats where Pam had been sitting. His eyes sparkled with some kind of mischief as he began unbuttoning his shirt. I attributed my sudden thirst to my intense workout, and walked over to crack open one of the bottles of water I kept here. When I looked back at him, his shirt was gone; he'd lifted his arms and was fastening his hair back into a low ponytail at the nape of his neck. His muscles in his chest and stomach rippled under his skin.

When I realized he'd seen me watching him, I turned back to my water. Which was suddenly hard to swallow. With a frustrated sigh, I recapped the bottle and put it back.

At the sound of shuffling noises behind me, I peeked out of the corner of my eye and saw that he was in the middle of taking off his second shoe. I wouldn't get a better opening. I took the opportunity and jumped at him.

He easily caught me, but I could tell I'd surprised him.

Good.

I went to town on him. Or tried to, anyway. He let me get in a few swats here and there, but none of my more solid hits landed. When I tried to grab his hair for a good yank, he spun out of my reach. When I tried to knee him in the crotch, he swept my legs out from under me. Grappling was out of the question. Once he had a hold of me, I wasn't going anywhere until he let me go. There was no doubt that if this were a real fight, he would win. He was a vampire fifty times my age; they only ever got stronger as they aged.

Still, it irritated me that after almost an hour, he hadn't broken a sweat. I knew damn well that vampires _couldn't_  sweat, but I wanted him to. I wanted to see that I was having some kind of effect, that I wasn't just kicking and flailing for nothing. Northman seemed to recognize that I wasn't up for conversation, and didn't even try to talk. This wasn't how my workouts were supposed to go: they were  _supposed_  to relieve tension, not create it. They were  _supposed_  to make me feel better, not worse.

Eventually I just turned and walked towards the other end of the room. I went back over to my bottle of water and started drinking.

"Not bad, Miss Stackhouse. Had I been human, I'm quite certain you would have kicked my ass."

I was too busy drinking to respond to his words, but my I felt my body give an unwanted shiver at the tone of his voice. He sounded impressed.

"Do you hate me a little less now?" he asked.

That startled me. "I don't hate you."

"Really?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at me. "You refuse to call me by the name I've requested. You can barely stand to be in the same room with me, and for the last hour you've done your best to hurt me."

"Because we were  _sparring_."

" _I_  was sparring.  _You_  were fighting."

I took another drink, because I didn't know what to say. "Look, I'm just... I'm trying to adjust, okay?"

He was silent for a few moments. "I am sorry for what you have lost. You are not the only one having to _adjust_."

With a sigh, I let my legs fold under me and sat cross-legged on the mat. "You're right. I'm not being fair to you. I'm sorry. It's just I... I don't know how to deal with any of this."

He leaned up against the nearby wall and folded his arms.

"Why would you?" he asked, his tone surprisingly gentle. "There hasn't been a change in monarchs in any of the kingdom-states since your grandparents were children. Takeovers, or even attempted takeovers, aren't all that common. Your life — which, let's be honest, has been a very sheltered one — has been completely turned inside-out. While you may be more familiar with vampires than any other human, you are still a human, and a young one at that."

My breath hitched; I tried to cover it up by coughing, as if I were still trying to get my breath back after my extended workout. My having noticed his skin gleaming with  _my_  sweat… that had absolutely nothing to do with it.

I wasn't about to tell him that I was only  _mostly_  human. Mr. C wouldn't lie to me, and before we'd left that conference room, he'd stressed that I shouldn't tell any of the vampires about my true heritage.

If Northman picked up on my hesitation, he didn't say anything.

"So where do we go from here?" I asked.

"We can only ever go forward, Sookie."

I took another gulp of water in an effort to not look at him anymore. My emotions were all over the place, and it felt like if I kept staring at him, something in me would snap.

This was going to take a  _lot_  of getting used to.


	5. Making adjustments

It took a while, but Eric and I did manage to develop a kind of working peace. Since it still wasn't known that I was the telepath, when we were in public I acted as his assistant, bringing him up to speed on all the things with which I'd been helping Sophie-Anne.

As we walked through the palace, he would take note of everyone we saw and ask me about them. I gave him not only names but also as much information as I could remember ever having gleaned from their heads. We were certain there had to be traitors still in our midst, and I felt certain that they couldn't possibly be humans or Weres. They couldn't be anyone whose mind I could read. The idea of a human or Were traitor set me on edge, made me feel defensive.

Things between me and the new king stayed purely professional, perhaps even a bit on the cool side. Initially, I harbored resentments towards him that, looking back, I recognized were irrational. He wasn't to blame for Sophie-Anne's death. Hell, if it hadn't been for him, I would probably be dead or imprisoned somewhere in Arkansas.

During the attack on the palace, we'd managed to capture some of the Arkansas vampires; Pam utilized her rather creative application of silver pieces to random body parts of those prisoners. They hadn't brought any non-vampires with them, so I was of no use there. Pam and I made heavy use of the "interview" rooms — her on one side of the mirror with the person we were questioning, me on the other, hidden from view — to check out all of our humans and Weres.

Between the two of us, it didn't take long to weed out the informants. Plural. There were three of them; all human, much to my dismay. My primary consolation was that they had been fairly new in the palace, and in low-ranking positions that wouldn't have warranted a more thorough background check. It still didn't make me feel very good to think that if only I'd been more vigilant, maybe I could have prevented all of this.

Northman tried to assure me that even I could make mistakes, but that didn't help. I still had nightmares. Still cried myself to sleep. Still woke up with my cheeks wet, as if I'd wept the whole day.

As much as the human traitors had upset me, I realized I wasn't surprised. Weres knew better than to cross vampires, but humans tended to be pretty ignorant of supernatural politics. If there had been any more moles, they had fled during or shortly after the attack; some people were still missing. Some part of me thought that maybe I should be concerned for their welfare, but then again, they were at least partially responsible for the death of my queen. And if they weren't, then they had deserted her in her final hours, when she most needed help.

 _Fuck_  them.

Security was incredibly tight around the palace. I didn't mind the overkill, not in the slightest. Most of the people guarding us were familiar faces, people I had known for years. Mixed in with those folks were a number of vampires from Area Five who were extremely loyal to Eric; at his invitation, they had come down to New Orleans and taken up various positions around the palace.

I was kept under constant guard. From sunset until sunrise, Eric or Pam was nearby. When they had to go to their daytime rest, I was usually so exhausted I often did the same. I didn't sleep the entire day, but often I would wake up with only an hour or two before sunset.

No more was said about the mysterious "illness" I'd had when Eric found me in the panic room. I didn't know what Dr. Ludwig had told him, and I wasn't about to bring it up — I could tell he wasn't the type to forget something like that, but the least I could do was not remind him. I just kept taking my vitamins as I always had, and tried to put that entire mess out of my mind. If I didn't think about it, it wouldn't bother me; if it didn't bother me, then Eric wouldn't be able to pick up on it. Maybe.

I could tell he was far more perceptive than he let on. He didn't always show his hand right away, but when he did, it was obvious — to me, at least — that he'd been paying very close attention all along. It baffled me that his subjects were surprised by how much he seemed to know. Rumors started to spread that  _he_  was the telepath. They didn't last long, but they did help to make vampires that much more wary of him.

Once I started to cope with the loss of my original vampire family, I started to feel bad about the distance between me and Eric.

Not all of that was my doing; he was completely swamped. Even while Pam and I had been weeding out the moles, there was reconstruction to be done around the palace.

Because of the late hour of the attack from Arkansas, and because of the ways vampires tended to do things, the attack itself was relatively easy to keep out of the human press. There was very little exterior damage to the building, and any internal repairs were done with some Were-based construction company.

If all of this had happened before the Great Revelation, it would have been a breeze for Eric. Relatively speaking, of course. All of the other Louisiana sheriffs already knew and respected him, so he didn't need to do much to win their loyalty. Hell, the same could be said for most of the supernatural folks in the state. He was known for being fair; while he wouldn't hesitate to lay down the law, his punishments were swift, just, and finite. Once the piper had been paid, he considered the matter closed.

When it came to humans, he had his work cut out for him. Sophie-Anne had been a fairly public figure around town, and there were people who would wonder where she had gone. The real trick of it was that humans had no idea of the power structures and hierarchies within the vampire world. They'd known that Sophie-Anne was a rich and powerful vampire, but they'd never known she was Queen.

Ultimately, the cover story was given that Sophie-Anne had decided to return to her beloved homeland, what was now called France, to live a quiet life in the countryside. Eric was the equally rich and powerful vampire who had purchased her mansion after she'd left the country.

Something about Eric held most of the people of New Orleans in a kind of thrall. He was adored. His picture was in the local papers and trashy rags just as much as Sophie-Anne's had been, perhaps more. He was the hot playboy, the eligible bachelor vampire who had such scandalous rumors attached to his name, most of them couldn't be printed. Not without heavy use of euphemism and allegory.

They weren't all true, but in many rumors there is at least an element of truth. He was old enough that he didn't need to feed as often. Like most vampires, he liked to combine sex and feeding; or at least, he let that people keep that impression. Women who spent a few hours in his chambers would come out looking like they'd just run the happiest marathon of their lives — exhausted to their bones, but grinning like they'd just won the lottery. Some of them had to be carried out of his room.

I could tell that some of them had been glamoured. Not beforehand, mind you. Pam and I seemed to be the only females around who were impervious to his charms, and Pam was quick to remind me that she'd already fucked him out of her system decades ago. I rarely responded her when she'd say that sort of thing. I knew she was fishing for information about my orientation.

As curious as I was, I never asked him why he glamoured his partners. That was a can of worms I had no intention of opening.

Rumors abounded that I was his pet, but I did nothing to encourage that line of thinking. He never commented either way, not wanting to draw too much attention to me or attribute me with too much importance.

Privately, he and I fought. Frequently. And about damn near everything.

\---

One evening I rose to find that someone had replaced my shampoo and conditioner. It wasn't housekeeping; they only replaced my toiletries when they were almost gone, and these bottles had been almost full. A closer look at the labels was surprisingly informative, given that I couldn't read a word of it: it was all in Swedish.

I debated skipping my shower, but I'd gotten nervous about that ever since the night in the panic room. I didn't want to be stinky again. It wasn't logical, because I knew that as long as I kept taking my vitamins it wouldn't happen. Even so, I was pretty vigilant about hygiene.

After I was clean, I walked to Northman's office. The door was open, and he and Pam were both in front of their laptops, likely catching up on any news they'd missed during the day.

I knocked on the door frame and waited to enter, as I'd been raised to do. That wasn't vampire training, that was all Gran. She'd been big on manners.

"Sookie," Pam almost purred. "You're looking particularly lovely this evening."

"Evening, Pam. You look… well, about the same as ever." Vampires didn't change much. "Can I have a few words with your maker?"

She smirked, probably because I was asking her permission instead of his. "Of course."

When she didn't get up right away, I realized she wasn't going to.

"I meant alone, Pam. Which means I'd like for you to leave the room."

"But I  _like_  to watch."

Northman snorted, and said something to her in their language. I had no idea what was being said, but still had to fight back a blush. He always seemed to enjoy when I did that, and I could never quite figure out why.

With a huff and a roll of her eyes, Pam got up and left the room, closing the door behind her.

I sat down and folded my arms across my chest. "Did you change out my toiletries?"

"No." He seemed distracted by something on my shirt. I looked down to see if I'd accidentally put on clothes that weren't clean. I'd been pretty mad when getting dressed, so he should be glad I'd remembered to put on clothes at all. Sometimes I forgot silly things like that when I had my dander up about something.

Then it hit me what he'd said. For a brief moment, I felt flustered. If he hadn't done it, then who? And why? Oh hell, was the new stuff some kind of trick? Could shampoo be poisoned? And this might be serious! Why was he smirking?

"I had Pam do it," he said, looking back up at my face.

My worry vanished as quickly as it had appeared. I glared at him.

"You  _ass_."

He blinked, and I could tell he was fighting back a grin. "I'm an ass for replacing your toiletries?"

"No, you're an ass for messing with me just now. Messing with my stuff makes you an  _overbearing_  ass. Why would you do that?"

He sat back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. I didn't like this; I'd seen him do this in meetings and it usually meant he had something up his sleeves. He'd tipped his head back slightly, and was looking at me with hooded eyes.

"You keep your hair quite long, but not out of laziness. The ends are regularly trimmed so it doesn't look ragged. Hair as long as yours hasn't been in style for several generations, so one would think that your hair was a matter of personal pride. As it should be, in your case; it's quite lovely. It's probably also difficult to maintain. I figured better products would make it easier for you."

"Then you could have  _suggested_  them instead of just barging into my room—"

"I didn't go into your room."

"—Instead of having  _Pam_  barge into my room to mess with  _my stuff_."

"Is that what you're really mad about?" he asked softly, almost apologetically.

"Yes."  _And no_ , I finished in my head. Life at the palace was restrictive. I'd gotten used to it over the years, mostly because I knew there were no safe or happy alternatives for me, but that didn't mean I always enjoyed those restrictions. As stupid as it was, shampoo and conditioner were two things I could decide for myself. I didn't want any of my choices taken from me.

I wasn't about to bring up that whole mess. He'd want to ask me about that. About why I never left the palace; it wasn't just for safety reasons. My bond with Sophie-Anne had greatly boosted my mental shields, and now that the bond was gone, I found human minds just as noisy and overwhelming as they'd been when I was growing up.

Answering one of his questions only ever made him ask two more, and I was in no mood for that tonight. He was one of the nosiest vampires I'd ever met, and the sort of questions he asked rarely had easy answers.

He watched me for a few moments; it was times like those where I wondered if there was any truth to the rumors of him being telepathic. I had to remind myself that if he'd any abilities along those lines, he would have figured out years ago that I'd been Sophie-Anne's telepath.

"Then I apologize for having upset you," he finally said. "But give the new stuff a try. If you don't like it, you can always get something else."

I relaxed a little. Apologies from him were rare, but I took that to mean he was sincere whenever he offered one.

After he called Pam back into the room, we moved on to discuss some recent bits of intel he'd gotten from his spies. There was a lot of blustering from some of his political opponents, which he and I both felt similarly about: it meant almost nothing.

Vampires who were going to attack usually didn't brag about it beforehand. Or if they did brag about it, and then tried to attack, they weren't around to brag about it afterward. However, it'd be stupid to completely dismiss them. I offered information when I had it, but I let Pam and her maker handle most of the actual maneuvering.

Nights passed, as they tended to do, and I noticed with some irritation that my hair  _was_  more manageable with the new shampoo. I also really liked the way it smelled. I couldn't explain why that ticked me off as badly as it did, but there were plenty more battles for me to choose from. Sophie-Anne had been overbearing in her own ways; I suspected it was a common trait among vampires, especially monarchs.

He seemed to both love and hate the fact that I had no problems arguing with him behind closed doors. He wasn't used to people fighting with him; sometimes Pam heckled him or tried to get his dander up, but when it really mattered, he always had the trump card of being her maker. No one else dared to argue with the king. Even as a sheriff, no one had wanted to challenge his authority or risk getting on his bad side. He was someone you wanted as a friend.

Maybe he simply enjoyed the novelty of someone who wasn't afraid to tell him exactly what they thought. That was something Sophie-Anne had mentioned to me several times. Even her own children never challenged her the way I did.

Some of his frustration and irritation with me over this cooled when he found out that I'd done the exact same thing with Sophie-Anne. I may have exaggerated how much she and I had fought, just to make him feel better. Sophie-Anne had once told me that I might be the only living creature who could give a vampire an honest to goodness headache. Eric laughed when I told him that.

He was at least grateful that I never fought with him when anyone else could see or hear it, but he did occasionally complain that I made his head spin; I would be perfectly well-behaved until we were alone, and once that door closed, the gloves came off.

I wouldn't even fuss at him if Pam were in the room. While she might enjoy needling him for the sake of seeing the funny faces he made when he was angry (her words, not mine), I didn't need to encourage any strange triangular politics. Pam and I had our own interactions, our own relationship, and I tried to keep her maker out of it. She and I were rather like two peas in a pod, aside from (or perhaps because of) the fact that she hadn't yet been able to get me to have sex with her.

It shouldn't have surprised me, then, that my lack of sexual activity would become a favorite talking point with Pam. One evening, as I was exercising in the gym, we had a perfect example of a conversation that happened more than a few times.

"I was talking to one of your Were guards," she said.

"And by that," I interrupted, "you mean you threatened or glamoured them for information?" I'd learned that she was pretty good at glamouring, and had the ability to get even Weres — who were notoriously hard to glamour — under her thrall.

"Naturally. And they were telling me that you don't have any daytime visitors to your room."

Grabbing a towel, I stepped off the treadmill and wiped the sweat off my face. "Your point?"

"My point is, no  _wonder_  you're cranky. You basically quit sex cold chicken—"

"Cold  _turkey_ , Pam. And I'm not cranky."

She snorted. "Please. Anytime you and Eric are alone in a room together, you fight like cats and dogs. And it couldn't  _possibly_  be  _sexual_  tension between you two, because you don't bat for his team. Or do you?" she asked with a smirk, one elegant eyebrow arched.

For weeks now, both Pam and Eric had been trying to find out if I was gay, straight, or "yanno, _whatever_." I didn't think it was any of their business.

"It's not sexual tension, Pam."

"Okay, then who are you having sex with?"

"No one. Honestly, it  _is_  possible to abstain."

Pam wrinkled her nose. "Possible, sure. But why would you?"

I looked her square in the face. "It's too complicated right now."

"If it's complicated, you're doing it wrong. Or you're using too many props.  _Some_  props are okay, but you  _can_  overdo it."

" _Pam_. Enough."

"Will you at least tell me—"

"Nope. You and Northman have some kind of bet going on, I just know it. It's a competition to see who finds out first, isn't it?" Her poorly-feigned innocent expression was all the answer I needed — that it wasn't just information they were after. "Right. Sorry, I'm  _so_  staying out of that one."

She watched me as I got back onto the treadmill. From the corner of my eye, I could tell she was looking at me like she was trying to figure something out.

"Why do you call him Northman? He'd really much rather you call him Eric."

I frowned. "It's too personal."

"So why don't you call me Ravenscroft?"

"You're not my boss."

"Technically, neither is he. You're an independent contractor."

"Don't you have a fashion magazine to read?"

"I've already read it. And you're evading."

"Yeah, well, you're pestering."

She smirked. "Do what you're good at, or so they say."

"Are you saying I'm not good at being evasive?"

"I'm saying that you seriously need to get laid, and I believe I am just the vampire to help you out."

Stepping off the treadmill, I bit my lip as I pondered something. At this point, I had tried everything to keep this conversation from coming up, and it seemed like the only thing left was to just spill the beans. Given that there was probably some kind of competition between Pam and Northman about it, I didn't want to take a side. But in all honesty, I was a lot closer with Pam than I was with the king. I never really confided in either of them, but I was more likely to talk about personal stuff with Pam.

She must have sensed that I was close to giving in — granted, the only thing I'd be giving up was information, but she may not have realized that — because she stayed quiet. If I'd known it was that easy to shut her up...

"I'm not going to ask the impossible: I know that if Eric asks, then you have to tell him. But I also know you'll probably tell him even if he doesn't ask. I don't think this is anyone's business but mine, but I'm really sick of having this conversation."

She nodded and remained silent. Maybe I could drag this out a bit? Silent Pam was kind of nice.

I took a deep breath, exhaled, and rubbed a hand over my face. "Sophie-Anne and I never had sex."

Pam blinked owlishly at me. "Fuck me running. Are you  _serious_?"

Nodding, I decided to go big or go home. "I've never slept with anyone."

This time, there really was no response. She just gaped and blinked. When she finally found words again, she seemed to have trouble putting them together properly. "So you... but wait. You... I don't... _What?_ "

"I think the word you're looking for is  _virgin_. And because I must be wearing my psychic pants, I believe I can already answer your next question: if orientation is based not on who you've done but who you're attracted to? I guess you'd say I'm straight. I've just never found women appealing in that way. Sorry."

She snorted. "I don't think I can tell Eric that."

Now it was my turn to be confused. "Not that I'm complaining, but why's that?"

"He wouldn't believe me. And if he did? He wouldn't leave you alone until you gave in. Don't get me wrong: he would never force you into anything. He's not like that. And this has fuck-all to do with virginity; virgins are highly overrated — all nervous and twitchy, with no idea what they're doing." She stopped, and her eyes narrowed as she looked more closely at me. After a few seconds of this intense scrutiny, she said, "Don't you dare tell him, Sookie Stackhouse, unless you plan on doing something about it."

Now I was stunned for other reasons. This conversation was not going in any direction I could have anticipated. "Pardon?"

"Just so long as you understand that  _he_  will always be my priority, that I will always choose him over you? We'll be fine. But you hurt him and you'll have me to answer to."

Stunned, I gaped at her for a few seconds. "Jesus, Pam. What the hell?"

She threw a towel at me. "You are the most oblivious telepath I've ever met. Finish your workout. I need a break from you."

Unless she was hiding something from me, I was the  _only_  telepath she'd ever met. I caught the towel and glared at her. "I think I'm done here. You can drop me off at my room."

"Fine."

I resisted the urge to respond, figuring maybe if I let her have the last word, she would shut up and give me time to figure out what the hell had just happened. I grabbed my things and started walking towards my room. Since there were guards posted outside, I could actually be alone in there. That was exactly what I needed, right about then.

After she escorted me to my room and made sure my guards weren't going anywhere — and that they wouldn't let  _me_  go anywhere — she took off. I decided to not be mad about being kept in my quarters, because I had plenty else to be mad about. I kept to myself for the rest of the evening, fuming and wondering what the hell she'd been on about. And then, when I figured it out, I grumbled and had imaginary arguments where I told her exactly where she could stick her ideas about me and her maker.

It didn't matter what I felt about him — whether it was irritation over his nosiness, frustration over his stubbornness, or that weird fluttery thing my chest sometimes did when I'd catch him looking at me — he was still my boss and I still had to keep my head clear. I'd let Sophie-Anne down by letting humans be the ones to betray us to our enemies.

The next night, it was as if the conversation hadn't ever happened. She went back to flirting with me, leering, jeering and dropping dry pick-up lines. It made me wonder if perhaps I'd imagined the entire exchange, at least until the first time she and Eric and I were all in the same room: the first time he turned his back on her, she shot me a single look — a warning.

The whole damn thing was irrelevant, as far as I was concerned. I'd figured what she was getting at, and if she thought I was ever going to get romantically involved with her maker, she was sorely mistaken. Me and Eric? Pff. Never gonna happen.


	6. A promise kept

After the odd dust-up between me and Pam, things settled back into their initial pattern. Neither of us spoke about it. There was lots of work to be done, and we couldn't afford for there to be strife between us. The nights turned into weeks, and even those seemed to be passing quickly. Time flies just as quickly when you're buried up to your eyeballs in work as it does when you're having fun.

One night in particular kept me up until about noon-thirty, long after the vampires had been forced into their daytime slumber. They must have realized how late I'd been up, because they let me sleep in; it was already after sunset when I woke of my own accord.

I was slightly surprised to feel the presence of a single vampire outside my door; normally I had two Were guards. Even if it were Pam, that was still kind of strange. While I couldn't read vampire minds, their brain patterns had distinct feelings to them, and even in my half-awake state, I knew that wasn't Pam standing out in the hallway.

Curious about the difference, I scanned the brain signal a little more closely.

No.

_It couldn't be._

I ripped the covers off of me, ran to the other side of my bedroom and threw open the door.

"Siegbert!" I shouted.

Siegbert turned, and without a word, picked me up into a bear hug that squeezed the very breath from me.

"Sweetie," I croaked. "Air..."

He eased up a little, but still held me close. "Is just us, Sookie," he said. "Just us now. But I watch over you."

The lump in my throat made it impossible to respond, so I just nodded and held on tight. We stayed like that for a few minutes before he slowly put me back down on my own two feet.

"Where  _were_  you?" I asked, not caring how petulant I sounded. "I thought you were dead."

His eyes shifted from one side to the other before he focused back on me. "Arkansas. Killed king for Sophie-Anne. Came back for you."

"You know I can never leave here, even if I wanted to. Are you okay with staying, even though..." the lump in my throat tightened again, "even though it's just us?"

He shrugged, trying to appear less emotional than I knew he was feeling. "Promised."

I nodded and gave him a crooked grin. "I'm glad you're back. Eric and Pam already know, right?"

"Right."

I invited him into my room, but he refused, saying in his own clipped way that he wasn't moving from his spot until I left my room.

Siegbert's return changed everything and nothing. He was my new full-time guard, which meant Pam could focus her attentions elsewhere. He refused any other position, and he refused to accept help from any other vampires, often growling if anyone other than Northman got too close to me — even then, I think he only deferred because Northman was the king. Help from Weres was only grudgingly accepted because he couldn't guard me during the day.

One evening, about a fortnight after his return, I was surprised to see Siegbert enter my room. It was a night off for me, so I'd just been catching up on some reading. He locked the door behind him and set something down on the coffee table. I was surprised to recognize it as an anti-listening device like the one that Mr. Cataliades had used when he had I had first met after the attempted takeover. Hell, maybe it was even the same one; I wasn't sure. Maybe they weren't uncommon? I'd have to ask Mr C. about getting one. They'd proven to be quite useful.

Siegbert held a finger to his lips in the universe  _hushface_  gesture, and I nodded. I waited until the little silvery ball was pushed down onto the pyramid, but even then, I had no idea what exactly to say other than, "What's going on?"

"Many years ago, Sophie-Anne told me that when you appear to be stupid, people will say the damnedest things around you."

I gaped at him. "You..."

"I can speak and understand English perfectly." He shrugged. "I've been fluent in all of the various forms of English since the language existed. But appearing stupid is as good a disguise as any. You of all people should know that."

"Sorry, huge paradigm shift, here." I blinked a few times, rubbed my eyes, and then shook my head. Unfortunately, that didn't do anything except make me feel slightly dizzy. Maybe vampires were the only ones with Etch-a-Sketch brains.

"Obviously, this is a huge secret I'm asking you to keep. But you and I, we are all that is left of Sophie-Anne. If we cannot trust each other, then..." he coughed and cleared his throat. "Had she not met her final death, it was only a matter of time before you would have been my sister, anyway."

While that was news to me, it also wasn't that big of a surprise. "If she had—"

"If she had, you'd have been expected to stand and fight with the rest of us, most likely. You'd be dead."

I paused for a moment and tried to let that sink in.

Nope. Wasn't gonna happen. There was way too much going on here. I knew we were working on borrowed time; that anti-listening device wouldn't last forever.

"My maker and my brothers — the one I was born with and the one she gave me — are all finally dead. All I have left is that my queen would have wanted me to watch over you. You, who one night would have become my sister. I will do as she would have wanted until you no longer need me, if that night ever comes."

"I..." I found I couldn't utter much more than that. He gave me a crooked grin before sitting up a bit straighter. That was the signal that we were moving from the emotional to the intellectual; with an ache, I recognized it as something Sophie-Anne used to do, the softening and hardening of her posture.

"I will start teaching you some Old Saxon," he said. "I am fairly certain the Northman doesn't know that one. It will allow us to talk without him or his brat listening in on us. How have they been treating you?"

"We're all still getting used to each other," I responded, still not quite used to being able to talk so directly with Siegbert. "Before I did any work for them, Mr Cataliades helped us draw up a new contract. It's only for six months, though."

"Good," he said, nodding. "Will they let you leave after six months, if you wanted to?"

I shrugged. "Where would I go?"

"Anywhere you want. There are places in the world that are mostly empty, where there are so few people that what languages you do or don't speak are largely irrelevant. Money is no issue. I know you were paid well over the years and have had little opportunity to spend it. I have more money than I would know what to do with, even if I lived another thousand years. I have disappeared enough times to know how to remain unfound, even by other vampires."

It was the longest speech I'd ever heard from Siegbert, and the implications were just as surreal. Even if Northman didn't want to let me go, without a contract, I was a free agent. With Siegbert's help, there was the slightest possibility that I could live a life outside of the palace walls. Never before had the idea even held the slightest appeal to me. Now, it was tempting enough that I knew it would be something I fantasized about whenever life was difficult.

But could I really do it? Could I actually go through with it? The very idea of leaving the palace was both beautiful and terrifying.

"That's a huge decision," I said slowly. "Obviously not something I could decide tonight. And I would want to go with a clean slate: it would have to wait until after my contract was up. I don't want anyone having a valid reason to come after me."

Siegbert snorted. "Sookie, as long as you are a telepath, people will  _make up_  valid reasons to claim you as their own. You are right, though: make no decisions tonight. Other than the contract, how are things between you and the Northman?"

Quirking an eyebrow at him, I huffed slightly. "I don't know. He treats me well, all things considered. We argue a lot, but I treat him as respectfully as Sophie-Anne in that regard, at least. I never challenge him in public. Not even in front of his child."

He seemed to think about this for a moment before he responded. "Good."

"You don't like him, do you?"

"Mostly I don't care about him. One night, he will remove my purpose."

"Not if I have anything to say about it. As long as I'm here, so are you. I'll ask Mr. C about getting that into my contract. We had special clauses in my early contracts for Gran."

He frowned. "I don't think you can stop it."

"Stop what?" I asked. "Stop him from making you leave? Sure I can. It's amazing what Cataliades can do with a contract." From what little I'd seen of lawyers in movies and on television, I was convinced that demons made the best attorneys.

His brows knitted together as he seemed to contemplate whether or not he should tell me what was on his mind. Eventually he shrugged, the decision made. "She had to know I would tell you, and if she hadn't wanted you to know, she would have said something about that. I would have returned sooner from Arkansas, but the Great Pythoness called me to her. She told me several things, one was to remind me of the promise I had made to Sophie-Anne to keep you safe. The other was that one night, the Northman would remove my purpose, and that I would let him."

I rubbed my forehead. There was way too much information here, and it was getting difficult to figure out what had the most important implications. It would be a minor miracle if I didn't wind up with a headache. "What does that even  _mean_?"

Siegbert gave me a skeptical side glance. "It means if you don't know what it means, I can't be the one to figure it out for you."

I snorted. "From what I've heard of her, that sounds like something the GP herself would say."

"She's fond of saying that; it's almost a direct quote. Does your new contract with the king have any specifications about blood bonds?"

"I'm not required to have one with him, if that's what you're asking. He's not allowed to drink from me without my permission, which we all know I can't be glamoured into giving. And he wouldn't dare coerce me; if he violates the contract, it is immediately void. He's not about to give up a telepath over something as inconsequential as my blood."

He gave me another penetrating glance that had me wondering if this was someone else in a Siegbert skin — which I hoped wasn't possible. I wasn't used to seeing that much intelligence on his face; later, when I looked back on this conversation, it would still awe me how well he had kept it hidden. Most vampires thought he was barely able to speak his own native tongue, not that there were many people around who could test that theory. There was a sadness to him tonight that I couldn't figure out. Maybe he was just missing Sophie-Anne more than usual. I suspected that she and Wybert were the only ones he'd been able to really talk to, and now they were both gone.

Vampires weren't emotionless, as humans seemed to think. Quite the opposite. Vampires almost seemed to have too much emotion, but keeping it in check at all times was considered a sign of strength. Show emotion and you show weakness; show weakness and it's only a matter of time before someone uses it against you. I saw that played out countless times as I grew up, watching the court politics from behind my mirrors.

"That wasn't quite what I was asking, but it's good information to have," he eventually responded. "I think you and I should exchange blood again."

"Are you sure?" I asked, my eyebrows raised. When we had all first started to experiment with blood exchanges, years ago, Siegbert had had a great deal of trouble handling a connection with me.

"It wasn't a necessity then," he said, recognizing the situation to which I'd been alluding. "Not really. I think it is, now. It would help me to keep you safe."

I knew he was gearing up to give me the full spiel about the benefits of a blood exchange; Sophie-Anne and I had that conversation multiple times when we'd long-ago discussed the pros and cons of a full out blood bond. I interrupted him before he could really get going.

"Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah. I know the deal. It's just one blood exchange, not a full bond." There was more to it, though; we both felt it, but didn't want to say it out loud — it would hurt too much. All that was left of Sophie-Anne was what flowed in our veins. To share blood could almost feel like a communion, like a way of keeping her alive in us, between us.

I got up from my chair and sat on his lap, in a position I knew would make it easier; there was comfort there, against his skin. Our relationship never was and never would be anything remotely sexual. Many times, as a child, if I had fallen asleep outside of the room I'd shared with Gran, he would be the one to carry me back to my bed. While he and I had never really spoken, we'd communicated just fine over the years. I knew now that he'd thought of me as someone who would become his sibling, another child of Sophie-Anne's; I'd always felt towards him as I imagined I might for someone who was my uncle. He was the closest thing to family I had left.

When I bared my neck, he shook his head and reached for my wrist; I understood and appreciated that. He didn't want our relationship to change, either.

\---

Siegbert and I talked for as long as the anti-listening device would allow; we reminisced about the silly tricks he and Wybert used to play on me and Andre. It was still too painful to talk about Sophie-Anne. He told me what it had been like to watch me growing up, how proud he was of me for surviving as long as I had. When Gran and I had first arrived at the palace, when he'd found out what I was, he hadn't though I'd live to see my next birthday.

Eventually exhaustion took over, and he tucked me into bed much as he'd done when I was still a child. I drifted off not long after he closed the door behind him; the comforting hum of his mind, enhanced by the blood exchange, lulled me into the best sleep I'd had in months.

We didn't bring up the exchange with Pam or Eric; we didn't need to.

Pam picked up on it right away. Oddly enough, she didn't ask about the blood, but she did ask me if Siegbert and I were having sex. I told her that my sex life wouldn't be her business unless she was an active participant. I made sure to specify that that would  _never_  happen.

If Eric picked up on it, he didn't say anything. Most likely, Pam had already filled him in; she didn't like him to be surprised unless it was her doing the surprising. I couldn't help but notice that the tension between me and Eric changed; it didn't dissipate as I'd hoped it might, but it seemed to turn into something I really didn't understand. I had too much else on my plate to try to figure him out.

There was nothing he could say, really. There was nothing in my contract that stated I couldn't share blood with any vampire I pleased. While the idea of having sex with Siegbert made me cringe — I really did think of him as family — they didn't need to know that. If they thought he and I were having sex, well, that was no big deal, right? I didn't think Pam had told Eric about that conversation where I'd confessed to her I was a virgin; teasing aside, my sex life had never been any of their business.

I still acted as his polite assistant in public, still argued vocally with him behind closed doors. Every now and then, I would catch him looking at me with an expression that I didn't have time to interpret before his face would slip back into the smirk he usually wore around me. I was still getting accustomed to his moods, but I knew that most of the time, the way they swung had nothing to do with me. He was a vampire king, and while he had experience in lesser positions of authority, he was still new to this specific one. He was still adjusting.

We all were, really. I knew better than to take anything personally.

I was, after all, just doing my job.

Right?


	7. Coming clean

One evening, late enough to almost be considered early, Siegbert and I walked into my room and found Northman sitting in my chair. The lack of expression of his face was more alarming than a frown would have been; he was seriously pissed about something.

With a grimace, Siegbert looked from him to me, then nodded and said in his usual broken English, "I stay outside."

I closed the door behind him and walked over to the mini-fridge where I kept a few drinks and snacks in my room. I pulled out a bottled water and downed half of it before coming up for air. For the last few hours, Siegbert and I had been sparring in the gym, and I was a wet, sweaty mess. And a thirsty one, too.

"What can I do for you, Northman?" I asked, trying to keep my temper in check. Being feisty with him was almost more out of habit than anything else these days. He did still get my dander up from time to time, but I needled him because Pam had been right: it  _was_  fun to look at all the faces he made when he was irritated. He didn't do it in public, but we didn't poke at him in public either.

His gaze was frosty; this mood of his was no habit. He was there for a reason, not for the usual needling that we did off each other; he was just as guilty of trying to get my goat as I was of trying to get his.

"You can tell me what these really are," he said, opening his clenched fist. I looked down and saw several of my vitamins.

My  _special_  vitamins.

I opened my mouth, but before I could get any words out, the look on his face went from chilly to downright glacial.

"Don't bother lying," he said. "I may not know what they are, but I know what they are  _not_."

I sank slowly onto the love seat and looked rather helplessly around my room. Mine was one of the larger dorm-style rooms in the palace, big enough for a full size bed and a separate sitting area. I was mentally stalling, I knew that. I cleared my throat, took another drink of water and a nice, deep breath.

"Where did you get those?" I asked.

"I had Pam take them from your room."

They were shameless, the two of them. I tried to keep my rising ire in check.

"When?" I asked, gritting my teeth.

"The first night you two met. She saw you taking them and decided to get samples, to make sure that they were what you said they were."

Somehow, knowing that it had happened before either of them really got to know me did make it somewhat easier, made it sting a little less. But it still stung.

"Why would you do that?"

"We didn't know how badly you were affected by Sophie-Anne's death. If these weren't really vitamins, we didn't want you to have access to something that could potentially be used to cause you any harm."

I folded my arms and glared at him. "You didn't seriously think I was suicidal. If you had, you would have kept me confined to a hospital bed and under constant supervision." Sophie-Anne had had similar concerns after Gran died, and that had been her response.

"Point," he admitted. "But the damage is done. Now we each know that the other has lied or at least misled. I've done my part to clear the slate; it's your turn."

"Oh, bull _shit_ , Northman. If you hadn't snooped — or ordered Pam to snoop, which is really the same thing — then none of this would be an issue."

"Untrue, Miss Stackhouse," he said; he tended to revert to using my last name — as I always did with him — when we were really going at it. "Whether or not I found out about these, you were still misleading me."

"They're just supplements!"

"What do they do? What is their purpose? These have nothing to do with human health."

I snorted. They had  _everything_  to do with keeping me alive. "Those are very important for my well-being."

He grinned, which concerned me to no end. "Are they, now? That  _is_  interesting. I had them tested, you see. Now, before I tell you what I've found out, do you want to come clean?"

"You have no right to be that much in my business, Northman."

"As king, I have every damn right to know who — or what — I have working for me. Think about it this way, Miss Stackhouse: if you aren't what you say you are, is your contract still valid? And if it isn't still valid, then how might that change our relationship, and your position here at the palace?"

I knew he could hear my heart thudding hard and heavy in my chest. There was no way out of this one.

I knew Mr. Cataliades, and I knew our contracts almost by heart. Technically, I was fairly certain that there were no loopholes like what Northman was suggesting, but he was the king. We might argue, but I didn't want to honestly be on his shit list. From what I'd heard of other monarchs, most of them couldn't care less about contracts or humans. I had no reason to believe that Northman was that sort, but even so. There were limits to how much I could get away with.

If Sophie-Anne had found out about them and pressed the issue, I would have told her with no qualms. I'd trusted her with my life. She was my family. She wouldn't hurt me. I couldn't say any of those things about the vampire who was trying to take her place.

With a sigh, I ran my hands through my hair; it was still damp and greasy from my sparring session, and I was starting to cool down a bit too much. I shivered, wished desperately that this conversation was already over and that I was already in a hot, steamy shower.

"They're magical supplements," I said after a moment's hesitation.

"I knew that much," he said; I could tell he was trying to keep himself in check, and that eased my tension a bit. He wasn't doing this to attack me, so much as he was doing it to protect himself. "Are you using them to enhance your telepathy?"

I felt somewhat taken aback by that; I wasn't sure if I was more insulted — I was damn good at what I did, not that there were any other telepaths out there to compare myself with — or just stunned that I hadn't considered he might come to that conclusion. He seemed to relax when he took in my reactions.

"My telepathy is completely unaffected by them," I said. "I know we both know they're not vitamins, but for the sake of… well, not knowing what the hell else to call them, I'm going to keep using that word. I've been taking them ever since I moved to the palace. I honestly don't know much about them. I mean, I know what they do, and I know that I get them from a trustworthy, reliable source, but I don't know who makes them or how they're made."

Northman nodded, the frown on his face now one of concentration rather than anger.

I continued. "They really are for my own good. The magic in them is not to enhance, but to suppress. Without them, I—"

" _You can read vampire minds?_ " he asked, jumping up in alarm.

"Oh, for the love of Pete! Will you just sit down? No, I can't read vampire minds, regardless of whether or not I take my vitamins. They're so I don't stink."

"What?" He slowly sat back down at looked at me as if I'd grown another head. Clearly, he was not expecting this much fuss over something as boring as body odor. Well, most humans would find it boring. Chances are, I wouldn't be so lucky that he'd feel that way once he put all the pieces together.

"If I don't take them, I smell funny."

It took him a minute to really grasp what I was saying, but when he did, his eyes grew wide.

"So when I found you in the panic room, that scent really was  _you_? I mean, it wasn't because of an illness?"

"Yes." I blushed slightly, remembering how embarrassing it had been to have an odor at all.

"That was your natural scent?" he asked again. Because if he rephrased the question, maybe I would give him a different answer?

"Yes," I repeated, but with more irritation this time around.

His eyes glazed for a split second before he cleared his throat — which was disconcerting, since I knew vampires didn't generally need to do that kind of thing — and then sat fully back in the chair.

"Do all telepaths smell like that?" he asked.

"Find me another telepath and maybe we'll know the answer to that. I have no idea."

"Do you know what you smelled like?" His voice was deeper, almost husky. I wasn't sure I liked where this was going. Sophie-Anne had never known what I was, or if she had, she'd never let on.

"Like I needed a shower?" I asked, hoping to ease some of the new tension that was starting to build.

"Sookie, you smelled like a fairy."

"I'm not a fairy, Eric."

His eyes widened briefly at my use of his first name, something I rarely did. I swore internally and tried to act like that hadn't just happened.

"Not a full fairy, no. There are half-breeds out there, but they are exceedingly rare."

There were times when a lack of response could be more telling than anything you could say or do; this was one of those times. When I hesitated just a fraction too long to respond, I knew I was caught. I sagged in my seat and sighed. There was no avoiding this discussion, but it could at least wait until I wasn't sweaty and gross.

I stood up. "I know better than to think this conversation is over, but I'm starving and I need a shower. Can you call up for my dinner while I get cleaned up?"

Northman nodded. "Yes. But you know I'm not leaving this room until we're done talking."

He was like a dog with a bone when he got it into his head that he wanted to discuss something. Conversations — or debates or arguments, depending who you asked — that were interrupted by the dawn were picked up as soon as we reconvened after sunset, as if we'd never stopped talking. That had taken some getting used to. I could tell this would be one of those  _conversations_.

Without bothering to respond, I grabbed some fresh clothes out of my closet and went into the bathroom. I didn't bother locking the door behind me. It was a strange kind of test, I suppose. If I could trust him to stay out of my bathroom, then I could trust him with information about my heritage.

If I couldn't trust him…

Well, if that turned out to be the case, then maybe I'd have to talk with Siegbert about getting the hell out of here. I shivered and turned the water as hot I as I could stand it.

\---

When I came back out, my dinner was ready and waiting for me. He hadn't even gone so far as to knock to let me know when the food had arrived, so I figured my permanent vacation to the furthest corners of Tibet would just have to wait. I saw two empty blood bags in the trash can, so I knew he'd already had his evening meal. That was a good thing, considering the discussion we were about to have.

Ignoring the food, I went straight over to my desk and opened one of the drawers. After emptying out the contents, I opened a secret compartment and pulled out a smaller version of the anti-listening device. Siegbert had wound up getting one for me without my having to ask; it wouldn't last as long as the others, nor could it be used as many times, but if it only worked this once, it would be worth it.

Man, a few months ago, I hadn't known these things existed, but now that I did? It felt like I was using them all the time. They really were incredibly handy to have, and I'd frequently wondered why I hadn't seen them around when I was growing up. Maybe they were a relatively new invention.

Northman's eyes widened and then narrowed as he saw what I had in my hands. "You are full of surprises tonight, Sookie."

"No bad ones, I hope."

The look on his face told me he hoped the same. I had a pretty good idea how vampires felt about fairies, but I wasn't sure how  _this_  vampire would feel about  _this_  fairy hybrid.

I set the device on top of my desk, activated it, and went back to the love seat. My dinner was on a tray nearby, but I was too nervous to eat it now. My shower had relaxed my muscles and warmed me, but the extra time to play the  _What If_  game had only served to tie my stomach up in knots.

"What I'm about to tell you is something that I never told Sophie-Anne; I didn't have the chance. I didn't find out until after Gran died, and then there was just never a good time. I'm rambling, I know." I paused, taking a slow, calming breath. "Gran's husband wasn't the father of her children; he was human. Their father was a half-fairy, which makes me one-eighth fairy. Which, from what I can tell, is still more than enough."

He took a minute to let all of what I'd said sink in. "Your grandmother had more than one child?"

"She had a son and daughter. Her son was my father. Her daughter was still alive last I knew, but we lost track of her after Gran died. She'd had cancer, so…" I shrugged and let my voice trail off. Last we'd heard, Linda had been cured, but there was no telling if the disease had come back or not.

"And you were an only child?"

"No," I said, shaking my head. "I had an older brother, Jason, but he died in the same accident that killed my parents."

"A car accident, yes?"

I nodded. It didn't hurt to talk about it, not really. But I wasn't sure where he was going with all of this; I thought he'd been informed of my history.

"So you have no living human relatives?"

"None that I'm aware of." It wasn't a lie; I knew I had a cousin, but I had no idea as to her whereabouts, or even if she was still alive. She'd fallen off the radar around the same time as her mother.

"What do you know of your real grandfather?"

"Nothing really," I said with a shrug.

He gave me a skeptical look. "Not even his name?"

"Oh, yeah. I mean, I know his first name. I don't know if fairies have last names. I just figured that since vampires and fairies couldn't really interact, it wasn't like you'd know the guy. Besides," I added, somewhat morosely, "he's probably dead by now."

"What was his name?"

I bit my lip. It seemed really important to him to know this, which implied that it carried more weight than I'd realized. It could be nothing, or it could be  _not_ -nothing.

"Fintan."

By that point, I knew Eric Northman well enough to know when he was hiding a reaction.

And Eric Northman was hiding a very big reaction. "You're certain of that?"

"It's all hearsay," I said. "I've never met him. Gran herself didn't tell me, she left that information in a letter that I found after she died."

"So there's no one who can corroborate this?"

"Is it really that important?" I asked.

"If Fintan really is your grandfather? Yes." The tone of his voice left no doubt on that point. This was serious business. I had been nervous before about having to spill such a closely-guarded secret, but now I was starting to feel skittish for other reasons.

As much as he and I fought, I had this feeling like I could trust Eric. If I hadn't felt that way, I never would have been comfortable challenging him, even — or perhaps especially — behind closed doors. He wouldn't hurt me. I knew that even before he'd found out that I was the Queen's telepath, back when he thought I was just her favorite pet. I knew, and I think he did as well, that my acting out was more a means of coping with what I'd lost. It had nothing to do with him, just as his moods rarely had anything to do with me.

"There's someone who can, but it's not my secret to tell."

"This person is trustworthy?" he asked.

I understood what he was actually asking me there, and I nodded. "Yes. This person would not lie to you or to me. I can get in touch with them to ask their permission to tell you. They may choose to tell you personally. Whatever their decision is, I can't make it for them."

"Please contact them at your earliest convenience."

"Can I ask why this is so important?"

"You can always ask me anything, Sookie; I think it best that I not answer this question tonight."

I didn't like that, but I knew this conversation wasn't over. And if I couldn't get it out of Northman, Mr. Cataliades would likely be able to tell me why Eric cared about who my grandfather was.

I picked up my dinner tray and started to eat. Some of the tension had eased from my belly, and it rumbled to let me know that it was still hungry, after all. The food had already gone cold, but I didn't really care.

"Who else knows?" Northman asked.

"What part of it? The name? Other than you and my secret source, no one knows that. At least, not as far as I'm aware."

"What means will you use to get in contact them?" When I narrowed my eyes at his question, he rephrased it. "Rather, can you get a hold of them by conventional methods? The purpose of the question is to determine how long we will have to postpone this conversation."

Looking at the clock on my nightstand, I realized that dawn wasn't too far off. "Hmph. If I can get ahold of them, you'll have your answer when you rise for the evening."

Northman shifted as if to stand up, but then seemed to change his mind. "Sookie, there is more than this that I would like to discuss with you, but we don't have the time. I'm going to pull rank here: if you have anything else on your schedule tomorrow night, have it cleared."

With that, he stood and left my room before I could respond.


	8. Necessary conversations

After the king left my room, and while the anti-listening device still had some time left on it, I decided to call Mr. Cataliades to get that taken care of.

In a quick and otherwise uneventful conversation with Mr. Cataliades — using an untraceable cell phone that I kept for such occasions, rare as they were — he gave me full permission to let the king know that he was the one who could verify that Fintan was my biological grandfather. He didn't seem at all surprised to hear from me about this; if I hadn't been so worn out, I would have pressed him on that point. Maybe next time we spoke, I'd ask.

Then again, he was a lawyer. And a demon. I imagined very little would surprise him.

I put all of my secret toys back into different hiding spots; now that Northman had seen the one in my desk, I wasn't going to use it anymore. I wheeled my tray out into the hallway, where Siegbert was doing his standard intimidation routine on my day guard as they prepared to switch shifts. I hid the smirk, but I could feel through our small connection that he was just as amused as I was, if not more. While he took my security very seriously, he seemed to delight in frightening the Weres.

Going back into my room, I closed and locked the door behind me. Ordinarily I would have procrastinated a bit more before going to bed, but the sooner I slept, the sooner I would wake up, and the sooner I would get the rest of this mess over with.

Weary as I was, sleep didn't happen easily; when it did happen, it was fraught with strange dreams.

In the first dream, I "woke" to see Sophie-Anne sitting at the foot of my bed. I gasped and sat up, ready to lunge at her, to ignore all convention and hug her until I couldn't breathe. With an outstretched hand stopping me, she shook her head.

"I'm not really here, Sookie. You know I'm well and truly gone,  _ma fifille_. Dust in the wind, as the song goes."

Even in the dream, my eyes watered at hearing her voice, at hearing her last nickname for me. "I miss you so much. Why did you leave me alone?"

She quirked an eyebrow. "Are you expecting me to give you some trite answer, tell you that you're not really alone? I hope not; you know I wouldn't lie to you like that."

That stopped me up short. Dreams weren't supposed to go like this. She was  _supposed_  to console me, tell me she would always be with me, and that as long as I remembered her, I would never be alone.

Sophie-Anne laughed; maybe I'd spoken that out loud.

"Oh, but that's such crap, Sookie. This is a dream, not a  _Lifetime_  movie. If you wanted to get royally fucked, there are other ways to go about it. Far better ways, might I add. Stop screwing up,  _fifille_. Get your head out of your ass. He's not your enemy. You remember I told you: if anything ever happened to me, go to him."

"Who, Northman?"

"No.  _Eric_."

"Yeah, him."

"No." She shook her head. "Not Northman.  _Eric_. There's a difference. And until you figure it out, you'll just keep making it worse."

A red cardinal flew in my window and landed on my alarm clock. It blinked, chirped lightly, and then spoke.

"If you throw your cat at me, I won't have so much furniture in my blood."

Deeply disturbed and baffled by that, I looked back over to Sophie-Anne to see if the bird's words made any sense to her. When I saw she was no longer there, I sat up in bed.

But I sat up in bed for real; I was awake now. Never before had I been confused out of slumber. Scared, sure. Confused? Not so much. That was a new one on me. I got up, had a drink of water, then got back into bed.

The rest of my dreams were fuzzy around the edges; the sort where you forget them immediately upon waking, but fragments of them come back to you after you've been awake a while, bubbling up around the edges of your mind, teasing you by staying just out of reach. All I knew was that I was in the secret rooms of the palace, and I was watching myself through the one-way mirrors. What I saw, what I did, I couldn't recall.

By the time I finally got out of bed, I felt like I had barely slept. Given that I had spent almost all of the day in bed, that was a bit shocking. Normally, half that time was enough to get me feeling well-rested. Now the sun was starting to make its way down, and night would be following close on its heels.

I used Siegbert as a vampire clock; when I felt his mind start humming for the evening, I knew the other vampires were rising or would be shortly. He was one of the older vampires around; I wasn't sure how Eric compared in that regard, but I knew he was no spring chicken. Not by several centuries.

Since Siegbert wasn't up yet, I knew I still had some time. My Were guard escorted me down to the kitchen, where I got some coffee and a bite to eat. As tempted as I was to bring an entire carafe of coffee, I knew that I could always phone down for more if I needed it.

Eric hadn't said where we'd be having our conversation, but on my way back to my room, I ran into him, headed in the same direction.

"Did you sleep well?" he asked. "You look tired."

"Eh. I was up late. I just got some food and coffee; once those kick in, I'll be fine." I straightened up a bit and looked him in the eye. "Where are we doing this?"

"My private chambers. It's more secure than my office, and everyone knows better than to disturb me in there."

I snorted, but gave him a warning glance. His somewhat scandalous reputation wasn't entirely pulled out of thin air. The only satisfaction I was willing to give him was that of his curiosity.

"Lead the way," I said.

Several minutes later, we had gone through the security doors and entered the royal chambers. I'd been in here often enough,  _before_. Back when Sophie-Anne was still queen. He'd redecorated since then. Interior decorating had never been a strong point of mine, so I couldn't necessarily name the style, but the suite definitely had a more masculine feel. Strong lines and solid colors. Natural textures and finishes.

After taking a good look around, I turned back to say something to him; the look on his face distracted me. I didn't know what to make of it. He looked pleased, but also looked as if he was looking more inward.

His expression was softer, somehow. It made him appear more like an Eric.  _Northman_  was a warrior, a hardened man from the frozen north. But  _Eric_  came from someplace warmer. Maybe Sophie-Anne had been right. Still, I didn't know what to make of this difference in him, in the way he was looking at me.

"What?" I asked.

He hesitated, then seemed to come to a decision. "It's nothing. First things first. Make yourself comfortable," he gestured to a set of couches with a coffee table between them. "Do you need any food or drink, before we begin? I would like for there to be as few interruptions as possible."

"I just ate," I reminded him. "I'll be fine for a while."

"Let's get straight to it, then. Were you able to get in contact with…?"

"Mr. Cataliades. He's the one who I contacted; he can verify my heritage." I left out the part he'd played in the origins of my telepathy. That wasn't the purpose of this conversation.

Northman — no,  _Eric_  — didn't look too startled, but I could tell he'd been prepared for the strangest of answers. In the grand scheme of things, my answer probably wasn't all that surprising to him. As king, he would have access to a fair bit of information about me, who I contacted regularly. I had a fair number of acquaintances, but I suspected that a background check on them wouldn't have panned out to anything too strange: they would have had to pass muster with the court before they could have gotten anywhere near me.

"He is also the one providing you with your… vitamins?" he asked.

I nodded, and told him how he and my Gran had been working together to keep me safe. As much as I feared the potential repercussions of spilling my secrets, telling someone else made me feel almost lighter, somehow. Eric let me ramble; he offered no interjections, no opinions. He asked no questions.

That was almost more dangerous than plying me with questions or prodding me for information. Before I knew what I was saying, I was spilling  _everything_.

How much it hurt to not be able to remember the death of my parents. How it hurt to have similarly lost the memories of Gran's passing. How I'd forced myself, alone and terrified, to memorize every second I'd spent conscious in the panic room, watching Sophie-Anne be tortured and eventually killed.

How, until Siegbert returned, I'd felt more like an orphan that I could ever recall having felt. How much I missed Sophie-Anne, how much she had been my whole world. I had well and truly loved her. How, every night, I kept myself as busy as I could until I dropped from exhaustion, all to distract myself from how alone I felt, to make me forget how frightened I was that I had almost nothing left to care about.

I talked until my throat went dry, until I'd started crying and then stopped again. When my voice started to crack from hoarseness, he silently handed me another water bottle. Gratefully, I opened it and took a long pull. I closed my eyes and leaned back, letting my head rest on the back of the couch.

When I sat back up, I looked over at Eric. "So, um. I don't suppose that was what you had in mind when you said we had a lot to talk about. I'm sorry; I didn't mean to dump on you like that."

"Don't apologize," he said quietly. "I had no idea of what you'd been through. It explains a… well, I think it probably explains just about everything."

We sat quietly, each of us processing what had just happened.

I'd let him in.

"I knew you were a rare creature, Sookie, but I'm not sure I realized just how amazing you had to be to keep up with yourself."

I blinked at him, with no other idea of how to respond to what he'd just said.

"What was it you wanted to talk about?" I asked. While I felt better to have gotten so much on my chest, his reaction was making me feel awkward. I wanted to move on before things got too weird.

He looked at his cuticles in a move that I'm sure had fooled many humans into thinking he was being completely casual. Even if I wasn't starting to get to know his mannerisms, I knew vampires; under that veneer, he was anything  _but_  casual when he spoke. "I am not one for having pets, but I find it's expected of me now that I am in this position. I think you should be my pet. Or at least, we should encourage people to believe that to be the case."

We'd just done a screaming cannonball depth charge into the deep end of the weird pool.

"Pardon?" I was waiting for a giraffe to saunter in and start talking about skylights or flowers or something equally bizarre, and for me to wake up feeling confused and thirsty. Surely this was all some kind of strange dream.

"I'm not going to ask you to have sex with me like you did with Sophie-Anne. While I'll admit to being curious, I won't even ask to drink from you. But I think it would be safer for you to pretend to be my pet."

There was no stopping what happened next. I blame the exhaustion, as well as the fact that I'd just spilled most of my guts to this man, this vampire, and the majority of his response had consisted of awe or quiet understanding.

"I'm a virgin."

If I'd been watching this conversation from behind a mirror, that was exactly when I would have started cackling with laughter. I think I was just as surprised to have said it as he was to have heard it. Somehow, I resisted the urge to clap my hands over my mouth.

Meanwhile, Eric had gone very still. "Virgin in the sense that—"

I could feel my cheeks burning from embarrassment, but also a touch of indignation. Was he going to make me spell this out for him? It was bad enough that I'd just flat-out said it. "There's really only one definition, Eric. I've never had sex with anyone. Not Sophie-Anne, not Siegbert, not any of the Were guards. Not anyone."

The king looked like I'd just put a doily on his head and called him Aunt Shirley — somewhere between astounded and indignant, and really not sure which of the dozens of questions to ask first.

After a very tense moment, he let out a very sardonic  _hmph_  sound. "The more I learn about you, the more I realize I had no idea who you were. Who you are."

Without the energy to really respond, and slightly terrified I'd start telling him my measurements or when I generally menstruated, I kept my mouth firmly shut. It was well past his turn to talk, anyway.

"When I first met you, you were a teenager, I think. You were already acting as Sophie-Anne's pet. Or at least, you were generally near her when you were seen at all. I thought you were just another human trying to work her way up the ranks among the donors. When you became the Queen's favored pet, I couldn't figure out why; you didn't smell or act like someone who would be in that position. I should have known better than to believe the rumors of your sexual abilities; they didn't jive with the way you carried yourself."

I started; it felt like ages had passed since I had bothered to pay attention to the rumors that floated around me. It seemed like a lifetime ago that I had laughed to myself about the rampant speculations over what I could do with my various body parts. I'd heard it all, and heard so much of it, that it hardly seemed noteworthy. It baffled me to feel like it mattered again.

He continued.

"I'll not rehash each and every time we've interacted. Some things are better left unsaid. What I will say is this: I can think of no one else in the last century who has staggered me a fraction as much as you seem to do on a constant basis. You challenge me as if my power means nothing to you. I hadn't been able to fathom how you're so fucking fearless after what I thought had been a sheltered life.

"In short: I was wrong about you, Sookie. But in a very good sort of way."

Aw, hell. He was apparently done talking. How on earth was I supposed to respond to  _that_?

In an awesome display of wit and eloquence, I stammered, "O…kay?"

Eric sat back and regarded me as if he was plotting. I'd seen that look before, and I didn't like it. Not when it was directed at me. It snapped me out of my stunned and awkward silence.

"Don't you  _dare_ , Eric Northman," I scolded.

The sound of his first name turned his impish smirk into a full, ear-to-ear grin. "Don't I dare  _what_ , Sookie Stackhouse?" he shot back.

"Whatever it is you're scheming at. I will have no part in your mischief."

He leaned back and gave me a knowing grin. "That's odd: I never figured you as being delusional."

"I  _beg_  your pardon?"

"Pardon granted," he said quickly, earning a glare from me. I suddenly found myself far too exhausted to continue this sort of bantering. It seemed to energize and encourage him, neither of which were desired results as far as I was concerned.

"I'm not making any decisions tonight," I said.

He looked even more satisfied. "A wise decision. There was something else I did want to ask you, while we were here." After I nodded, he continued. "Pam's reactions to you aren't what they once were. Mind you, I wouldn't notice the difference if she weren't my child, so I can tell she's trying to hide something. What changed?"

My eyes narrowed, and I hoped I looked more puzzled than concerned. While I knew the answer to his question, I didn't like the other questions it would bring up. "You'll have to ask her, I'm afraid. I don't know her well enough to be able to interpret her different moods."

He squinted right back at me. "Both true statements, but they're not exactly answers, either. You're evading, but I'll not press the issue tonight. In any case, I can make her answer me; I'd just hoped to hear your side of things first."

"Sneaky, Eric, but I'm not falling for it. Her mood swings are her business. And yours, if you so choose. Being her maker and all."

It felt strange to call him  _Eric_ ; I'd gotten used to the far more impersonal  _Northman_. In the course of the evening, my use of his first name had caused a number of split-second reactions, but thus far he hadn't commented.

We talked a bit more, keeping to much lighter topics: the current state of the court, review of recent events, going over upcoming situations — expected and theoretical. It was as if neither of us had wanted to end the discussion. While he and I had these sorts of meetings almost every night, usually just before dawn, this one felt more like the conversations that Sophie-Anne had I used to have. There was an odd intimacy to it: discussing the unsafe world of the court in the safe place of his resting chambers. I couldn't recall us having ever talked so easily.

He was more relaxed and pleased than I could ever recall seeing him.

I was far more comfortable once we'd moved onto topics that didn't deal directly with me. Being the primary focus of someone like Eric Northman was rather like being under a microscope; you wound up feeling like he saw far more of you than you'd intended to show him. And tonight I'd stripped myself as emotionally naked as I'd ever been in front of a man.

I should have enjoyed his laid-back attitude while it lasted.


	9. Questions answered

The night of our big talk, Eric and I wound up literally talking all night. He walked me back to my room about an hour before sunrise. I knew he'd be up for a while longer, but I was ready to drop. Though the palace was safer now, we never took any chances. Even though it wasn't known that I was the telepath, everyone thought I had been Sophie-Anne's lover and personal assistant. They figured that meant I knew all her secrets, and that meant I would still be at least some kind of target to anyone who wanted to attempt a takeover. That was the public explanation for why I was never without some kind of guard.

A while back, Eric had explained to me that takeovers weren't all that common, but when one happened, it was often followed by several more attempts. Once a kingdom was destabilized enough to be taken over, other people wanted to get a shot at the goods. It would take some time for the new monarch to get their own people in place, and that would be prime time for other kings and queens (or vampires who wanted to become monarchs) to get their own players on the board.

Having a telepath seemed to make things both better and worse, from what he told me. For now, most of the supernatural community couldn't seem to agree on whether or not the Queen's telepath had survived the attack. Spies were sent to try to figure that out; Pam and I had gotten quite creative when it came to misleading and trapping them. Eric chose to remain tight-lipped about it, because if the telepath was still alive, well… there were only so many humans left from when Sophie-Anne lived in the palace, and it would be a simple matter of deduction at that point. This was one of the reasons he hadn't discouraged rumors about him having been the telepath.

I had a nasty feeling that there was going to come a day when my secret wouldn't be a secret anymore. Whenever that thought occurred to me, I had to smash it down, to not think too hard about it, otherwise I would start to panic.

A night or two after what I'd started mentally referring to as The Talk, Pam pulled me aside. Siegbert had been getting a bite to drink from one of the donors, and so Pam was the one who walked me down to the kitchen so I could get myself something to eat. We'd happened upon a stretch of hallway where there was no one else within earshot, and like her maker, she was always an opportunist. She had one of those determined glints to her eyes, and I had a sneaking suspicion that I knew what it was about.

"You told him." Her voice wasn't exactly accusatory, but it wasn't the friendliest tone she'd ever used with me.

"Told who what, Pam?" Nothing said I had to make this easy for her. For a split second, the idea occurred to me that Eric had let her in on my fairy heritage; immediately I chased the notion away: he swore that he would tell no one, not even Pam — his child and second. Mr. Cataliades had said that I could trust him with that information, and I knew of no higher recommendation than my demon godfather.

"Eric. You told him that you were straight. Don't even try to deny it: he told me about your conversation. Asked me what I knew about it."

"What'd you tell him?"

She snorted. "I'm not an idiot, and neither is he: I answered his questions honestly."

"How'd he take it?" As much as she and I were chafing each other lately, I didn't want her getting into any trouble for keeping something about me from her maker. It would make the tension between us that much worse.

"Eh. He wasn't amused, but he wasn't pissed, either." She grinned, then; it was a wicked thing, a toothy, gloating grin that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

"Oh  _hell_ , what's that look for?"

"I warned you. I so completely and totally warned you. You're in for it now."

"In for what…?"

Pam just smiled, then started walking towards the kitchen again. A few of the live-in blood donors were just coming from there, so we couldn't talk openly anymore.

Just as I was about halfway done with my meal, Siegbert showed up to relieve Pam of her guard duties. For kicks and giggles, he glared at all of the kitchen staff until they found excuses to scurry off into other parts of the palace. He was always in a silly mood after feeding, not that he did it often. At his age, he could go for fairly long periods of time without needing blood.

I figured out what Pam had been referring to before we left the kitchen, and it wasn't much longer after that I got to experience it first-hand.

Siegbert escorted me to the library after I was done eating, and we found Eric there, but Pam was nowhere to be seen — or heard, which was unusual. Siegbert took up a position outside the door; I still wasn't real clear on whether or not he liked the king, but he seemed to trust him well enough to leave me alone with Eric.

Or maybe he just didn't want to deal with him, which I could understand. The two of them were still figuring each other out, still trying to determine threat levels and posturing. I was going to get into the middle of that mess; for all I knew, they had some history between them that went back to before Gran was even born.

I walked into the library, grabbed a newspaper and sat on the couch opposite Eric. He and Pam preferred to read the news on computers, but I found I sometimes had problems with electronics. Something about me tended to drain the battery life on most laptops.

"Evening, Sookie," Eric said looking up from whatever he was reading. "You're looking quite attractive this evening."

I looked down at what I was wearing; it was nothing special. "Um, thanks."

"You don't have to be shy. You could compliment me as well, if you wanted. I wouldn't be at all upset by that."

"Thanks, I'll keep that in mind." Okay, so Pam really hadn't been kidding. Good to know. I picked the paper back up and held it a little higher between us. Maybe he would take the hint.

"Was I too subtle, just there?"

"Subtle?" I asked, disbelievingly.

"Yeah, you know: not straightforward. Because what I really wanted was for you to express some kind of attraction, some kind of appreciation of my physical appearance. To quote an old song, I want you to want me."

After a few seconds of blinking at him, I grinned and opened the newspaper. "It's good to want things, Eric. It builds character when you don't get them."

"You're too young to have come up with a phrase like that on your own."

"I know. I got it from Gran. All that was old is young again."

"But not all that is old is capable of half the things I can do."

I snorted. "I'll take your word on it."

"I'd rather you didn't."

I looked back up at him. "You're telling me I shouldn't trust you?"

"I'm saying I'd love the opportunity to prove it to you." He waggled his eyebrows and then, behind closed lips, licked at his fangs.

Oh,  _please_. I rolled my eyes and went back to reading.

Thankfully, he let me read in peace for a while. The silence was only broken by the rustling of the paper and my breathing. After a little bit, I started to get chilly. When I reached for a nearby afghan — one that Gran had made — I glanced up to see Eric watching me.

"Are you cold?"

"A little. The palace can be drafty sometimes, and vampires don't tend to notice that kind of thing."

He grinned impishly. "I could warm you up."

"No, you couldn't. You're room temperature."

There was a knock on the door, interrupting whatever Eric was about to say. Which was good, because I'm sure it would have been a doozy. Pam poked her head in to remind us that we had a staff meeting with some of his sheriffs in a few minutes. She closed the door behind her, and as Eric stood up, he looked at me with the same grin he'd been wearing not long before.

"Friction."

"What?" What on  _earth_  was he on about?

" _Friction_ , Sookie. Think about it."

With a wink, he turned and left the room. As I stood up to follow, I realized what he'd been saying.

That he wasn't there to see my reaction was the only good thing about it.

\---

Over the next few days, I was frequently reminded that Eric wanted many things from me. Shyness was a foreign concept to him. Sometimes he would be flirty and suggestive, and in those moments, he was a master of innuendoes. Other times he would be blunt and simply state what it was he wanted: my body, my blood, my affection. Me.

Most of the time, this sort of thing didn't bother me. I'd never tell him — because it would only encourage him and make things worse — but sometimes I kind of enjoyed the attention. I just didn't know what to do with any of it, other than the banter. If he picked up on that, he didn't let on.

It wasn't that I knew nothing about sex. I'd grown up with vampires, and I could read the minds of humans and Weres. I knew lots about sex. I'd just never done anything along those lines. Gran and I used to love to watch figure skating, but that didn't mean I could strap on some skates and start pulling off tricks.

There were moments, however, when I just really wasn't up for dealing with any of it, and I would be just as blunt in telling him so. To his credit, he always respected that. If I told him I wasn't in the mood for it — be it his snark, his flirting or leering, or whatever frank commentary he would make about how good we'd be together — it would be like the flicking of a switch. Immediately he would go back to being calm and casual — the way he'd treated me back when Sophie-Anne was still alive, back when he was still a sheriff and I the queen's favorite pet.

I wasn't stupid enough to think that his ability to turn off the display didn't mean his feelings changed in those moments. Life at the palace was all about appearances, and one's survival — political and literal — could very well depend on the ability to completely mask any and all emotion.

While all of this was going on, Siegbert was teaching me Old Saxon. I was fairly quick to pick it up, and he was right: neither Eric nor Pam seemed to have any familiarity with the language. I didn't know more than a handful of phrases, but they were useful for letting my guard know whether or not I was okay, if I needed an excuse to leave the room, that sort of thing.

It wasn't all for security's sake. We used it as a means of covering up just how much he really understood of what was going on around him. My learning his language was seen as a concession to his inability to learn mine.

One evening, the three of us were sitting in Eric's study, each wrapped up in our own reading. Pam was going over some security reports, Eric was rolling his eyes at something he'd gotten from another kingdom-state, and I had taken a break from my perusal of the daily paper to ask Siegbert to get me some coffee. Except there wasn't a direct word for coffee in such an old language — or if there was, he didn't remember it, just like he didn't recall many other food-related words, having not used them in centuries — so the word we used translated as "wake-up milk."

After watching my guard leave the room on the errand I'd given him, the youngest vampire in the room decided to let her opinion on the matter be known.

" _That_ ," Pam practically spat, "is total bullshit. Sookie, you told me that you only spoke English. How long have you known… whatever language that is?"

I looked at her, mildly startled by her reaction. "I wasn't lying to you, at the time. He's only started teaching me a few phrases since he got back."

She  _hmph_ ed and then opened her mouth, but didn't get a chance to speak before Eric interjected, "Sounds like one of the older Germanic languages."

I nodded at him. "Yep. Old Saxon."

"Ah. I think I knew a handful of phrases of that, back when it was called something else entirely, but my understanding of it is long gone."

Just to test him on that, I spoke a phrase that Siegbert had made me memorize for this very purpose.

Roughly translated, I was basically telling Eric that the secret to eternal bliss was the lightning that shot from my nipples.

It was just bizarre and sexual enough that I felt fairly certain it'd get  _some_  kind of response from anyone who understood the language — which was exactly why Siegbert had taught it to me. As far as I could tell, neither Eric nor Pam had any idea what it meant, because it didn't even get me a blink or a twitch. He merely shrugged and said something to me in a language I'd never heard before.

Pam laughed. I gave them both a squinty look. "What?" I asked.

It was Eric who answered me, his smirk growing into a shameless grin. "I was just letting you know that most women are only capable of speaking gibberish after a night with me."

"What he  _really_  said," Pam said, "was that he'd gladly fuck the English out of you."

A few weeks ago, this might have caused me to start choking on my own spit, which goes to show just how much the dynamic in our relationships had changed. I snorted and decided to instead address the larger context here. "You don't seem to mind me knowing a language you aren't familiar with."

He shrugged. "If you keep speaking it around me, I'll pick it up. I've had to learn enough languages that I'm able to put together the pieces fairly quickly. I'd far rather have you learn Old Norse, but I recognize that you need to be able to communicate with your guard."

I nodded and turned back towards the paper, somehow accidentally giving myself a paper-cut in the process. Not like anyone gives themselves one on purpose.

Since I was still taking my vitamins, my blood still had no scent. I suspected that it might carry a trace of Siegbert's scent, since he and I had exchanged blood. Eric's nostrils flared, and I wondered if I'd imagined the dark look that crossed his face for a split second. Without really thinking, I put my finger in my mouth to try to cover up the scent.

Apparently that sent out a very different message. Pam sat back in her chair and folded her arms with a smile that was both amused and anticipatory — like she was about to watch something very interesting. Her maker very quickly turned her smile upside-down.

"Pam, go stand outside the room. And tell Sookie's guard to give us a few minutes alone, if he comes back anytime soon."

"Oh,  _that's_  not going to go over well," I muttered under my breath. Siegbert didn't like taking orders from someone a fraction his age any more than he liked someone trying to keep him away from guarding me.

"When did you and Siegbert exchange blood?" he asked, as soon as the door closed behind his child.

"Maybe two or three weeks after he got back," I answered. Since he had spoken plainly, I answered in the same manner. "I figured you'd picked up on it. You seemed to have done so, anyway. Surely you noticed something was different."

Aside from a slight shaking of his head, he ignored what I was asking. "What was your motivation?"

"It makes him a better guard. He can tell when I'm upset or nervous about something."

"Is that the only reason?"

I paused, not knowing entirely how to explain it. "Not really."

He seemed tense, and I'd been having trouble understanding why until he spoke next, "Are you two developing a relationship?"

When I realized what he was asking, I jerked back, nose wrinkled as if I'd just smelled something bad. "Oh! No, no, no! He's like… an uncle or a brother or something. No." I sighed. "When he came back, it was like we'd each gotten a chance to share something of Sophie-Anne between us. It was like… it was a way for us to say hello to each other and to say good-bye to her."

Eric was silent while he pulled out a tissue for me. I hadn't even realized my eyes had begun leaking. "That's what I picked up on, then. You seemed more at peace, somehow. More relaxed."

I nodded, but wasn't sure what to say.

He let out a quick laugh. "You had me concerned for a minute. I thought he might actually have been valid competition. Which would mean that either I was losing my touch or you really did have questionable taste."

It was at that moment that I recognized a pattern I'd been picking up on: he hated to see me in any sort of distress. My tears disturbed him in a way that I'd never seen in anyone else. His response was generally to try to make me feel better, to make me laugh or to distract me somehow.

Eric Northman really did care about me. He cared not just about my physical well-being, but also about whether or not I was happy. Even if I wasn't giving into his desire for sex or blood, he wanted me to be comfortable and content.

A vampire king had placed some value and importance on my happiness.

I also realized that  _that_  had been what was missing. That was what my decision had been waiting for: the realization that it wasn't just himself he was trying to please.

"I suppose it wouldn't look good for your pet to smell like another vampire, huh?"

Eric went very still. "Sookie?"

How he could ask so many questions with one word, I wasn't sure. But I heard each of those questions, and answered them in kind.

"Eric."


	10. Comfortable

Neither Pam nor Siegbert were pleased at being kept out of the study, but both of them could sense — through their bonds with Eric and me, respectively — that we were each all right and having a very necessary conversation.

And for several hours, that was all we did: talk.

We laid out the terms of our relationship — both the public and private sides — almost as if we were coming up with a different sort of contract. In a way, that was precisely what we were doing.

In public I would act like his pet, just as I had done with Sophie-Anne. I had no idea how the local humans who followed his every public move would interpret it, but I knew that some of the supernatural community would think I was being opportunistic. The vampires would appreciate that just as much as the Weres would scorn it. Whatever they thought was largely irrelevant, since Eric was the king. Had we attempted some sort of relationship while he was still a sheriff, back when Sophie-Anne was still queen, the rumors and gossip would have been off the charts.

In private, we would exchange blood at least once, and depending on how that went, I might or might not let him drink from me regularly. While there was no doubt which of those options he would prefer, he stated openly that he would respect my boundaries and my decision.

Ultimately, I agreed to it for many of the same reasons that I'd agreed to it with Sophie-Anne. It was a way of explaining my continued presence in the palace while being able to maintain the secret of my telepathy.

Being completely honest with myself, there was more to it this time around. My feelings for Sophie-Anne had been much simpler, much less conflicted. Even though I wasn't scared to butt heads with her from time to time, I'd always adored her. The reasons for that adoration had grown and changed just as I'd grown and changed over the years, but there had always been love and affection between us. It just hadn't been of the sort she'd eventually wanted.

Looking back on the interactions between me and Eric, I could see that my feelings for him hadn't become conflicted until Sophie-Anne was dead. Maybe I'd felt some kind of guilt; maybe it had felt like it would have been disrespectful to her memory to have continued feeling any sort of attraction to the tall, blond vampire. She had always wanted the sort of relationship with me that Eric now wanted, but just because of my nature, she never could have gotten it.

Vampires generally understood that human sexuality wasn't a choice, that we couldn't choose our orientations any more than we could choose to not breathe. We were who and what we were. Becoming a vampire seemed to free them from that orientation just as it freed them from their need for oxygen. So Sophie-Anne had respected that aspect of who I was; I wryly wondered to myself if that had played any part of her desire to eventually turn me, and with a pang I realized I'd never know either way.

Gradually, Eric and I reached a point where neither of us could think of any other aspects that needed to be addressed. The only thing left to do with the plan was to put it into motion.

We'd spent the last few hours sitting opposite each other, on different couches. When he smiled and gently patted the seat next to him, my heart started thumping a bit.

"Come over and sit by me, Sookie."

This was it. I gave him a shaky smile as I got up and sat next to him. It was awkward, at first. I felt stiff, like I didn't know where all of my limbs should go. He seemed to understand, and just put his arm around the back of the sofa, behind my head. He was letting me come to him, letting me move at a pace that I was comfortable with.

"You know, we've been physically closer than this before," I said, "but it feels different, now."

He chuckled. "Yes. When you tried to kick my ass in the gym, that had a  _very_  different vibe."

I blushed, remembering how I'd several times tried to knee him where it counted. "Well, that hadn't exactly been what I was thinking about, but, um… I'm sorry about that."

"Eh." He shrugged. "You were going through a really bad time; I know that now. If trying to beat me up helped at all, then I'm glad. I wouldn't have let you do any permanent damage to either of us. In some ways it was a relief to see how ferocious you could be, if necessary."

"I guess. But it wasn't right of me to take it out on you."

"Different people deal with grief in different ways. I'd rather you take it out on me than keep me in the dark about how you're feeling. As long as we communicate, we can work through anything."

I nodded. Neither of us felt the need to elaborate. It was nice to just sit there quietly with him. Without being prompted, I leaned towards him and rested my head on his shoulder.

Slowly, as if he was afraid he might startle me, he put his arm around me. I closed my eyes and let myself find comfort in his touch — and it wasn't at all difficult. Something in me loosened, some emotional knot untangled. I snuggled right up next to him and let my arm rest around his waist.

We sat like that for a while, but it wasn't too long before Eric said, "Forgive my boldness, but I'd like you a little closer."

I opened my eyes and leaned my head back to look at him. "We're already pretty close."

He grinned and slid his other arm under my legs, pulling me up and over to sit directly on his lap. "Sure, but I'm greedy. I want more."

"How much more?" I asked teasingly as he wrapped his arms around me.

"Everything. But I'll only ever take as much as you're willing to give, Sookie. I can be patient if it means eventually getting all of you."

"Hmph." I tucked my head under his chin and hoped he couldn't hear the smile on my face. "You seem pretty confident about that being a  _when_ , rather than an  _if_."

"I am very confident about us. I think we'll play together just as well as we work together."

I snorted. "Are you forgetting how much we fight behind closed doors? If you think my acting like your pet will have me tamed at all, you've got another thing coming."

He laughed, a low, rumbly sound that I could feel vibrate through his chest. "Oh, Sookie. I wouldn't dream of it. If anything, I'm hoping you'll be just as passionate behind my closed bedroom doors."

I knew better than to react with embarrassment. I'd seen all manner of behavior from vampires that humans would likely consider scandalous. I just hadn't participated in any of them, even though I acted like they were all old hat.

"You know that's not part of the agreement," was all I'd let myself say. The idea was… intriguing. But I wasn't going to let on, and I knew that vampires couldn't smell it when I was aroused any more than they normally smelled me.

"Not yet, no. You'll be in my bed eventually."

Even though I knew he couldn't see it, I rolled my eyes. "Once again, you seem really confident about that."

"It is what it is."

We sat like that for a while; I was kind of sideways on his lap, leaning my side against his chest, my head tucked under his chin. I felt so small, but also so protected with his arms around me. As if I knew he would never let anything happen to me. I felt safe.

"I like this," he said. "This is nice."

"It is. You're comfortable."

"You're warm."

"Along those lines… are you going to want to…" I paused, not knowing how to phrase it in this new context. A lot of vampires fed when they didn't need to, just for the temporary warmth it gave them.

"Not tonight," he said, having easily guessed what I'd been trying to ask. "Or at least, not right now. We'll let our friends outside know, first. So they don't panic, storm in here and ruin what would otherwise be a beautiful moment."

"Okay."

"I appreciate your enthusiasm, though."

I snickered at that. "I'm sure you do."

"It's not a secret that I want you, Sookie."

"No, you certainly haven't been shy about telling me, lately. And you know what they say about wanting things—"

"Yes," he said, interrupting me. "It makes them that much sweeter when you finally get them."

Eric paused, waiting for me to correct him, to continue the sort of bantering we'd been doing in recent nights. When I said nothing — because I didn't  _want_  to correct him — he let out a small breath, almost as if he'd been holding it. Odd behavior from a vampire who didn't need to breathe.

"I've wanted you for years," he said softly.

I hoped he couldn't feel the small shiver I'd felt at his words; if he had, he was kind enough to not say anything about it.

"I think Sophie-Anne knew that," I said.

"She and I never discussed it, but she was very perceptive."

I chuckled. "She kept saying that if I didn't have sex with her, I should at least have sex with someone. Your name came up a few times."

"It's very sound advice: you  _should_  have sex with me."

"Eh," I said, trying to sound more casual than I felt. "Maybe some night. One step at a time."

"Indeed."

I'm not even sure how long we sat like that because I fell asleep in his lap, with his arms around me. I woke only briefly, feeling like someone was rocking me. Dimly, I recognized that someone was carrying me. Whoever it was, they were shushing someone else who'd been trying to talk to them.

I woke up in a soft, warm place, but I was mostly immobilized. Something was keeping me firmly in place, and gradually I realized that I was not in my own bed or my own room.

Eric had taken me to his room, and was snuggled up behind me. His arm was around my waist — not tight enough to be uncomfortable, but I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. I lifted my head enough to see that we were both fully clothed, then let it rest back down on the pillow.

He probably didn't know that this would be the first time I'd ever been in this room during daylight hours. As close as Sophie-Anne and I had been, I'd never been in her room while she was in her daytime rest.

In a way, it made sense. The trust that she and I had shared was one that came with time and familiarity. While it had been a fairly organic and natural thing, it was of a very different nature from the trust that Eric and I had developed. We'd worked for what we had; we'd earned it. Maybe it hadn't truly been put to the test, and maybe someday it would crack and break. But right now it was both fresh and solid.

Growing up as the only known telepath in a world of vampires, I'd known that I would always live among them. I'd known there was no getting out. Were guards and human donors could come and go from the scene, but I was to be a permanent fixture. It was just a given — there was no point in fussing over what couldn't be changed, as Gran might say.

As I lay there, I knew deep in my bones that the vampire who held me in his arms would never let me go.

And I was happy about it.

I closed my eyes, smiled, and let myself drift back off to sleep.


End file.
